You have to have a strong affinity for mold to brave this baby. Let me explain.

I’ve lived in both Marchetti West and East and I can tell you from experience: It is a paradise. Nay, a utopia, if you will. (And you should.) I wake up in the morning to the beautiful aroma of cigarette smoke from the balcony above and I thank God for all the little birdies and the bees and the lung cancer. Do you understand what I’m getting at? Marchetti Towers made me believe in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ! Can Coronado do that for you? I don’t think so. And that’s only the beginning!

I put the tea kettle on and wait. And I wait. I wait so long that I fall back asleep, but that’s OK! The top right burner is the one that hasn’t worked all year anyway! As I sleep, I dream about the dashing young man who broke into my apartment last semester and entered my bedroom at 2:30 a.m. Boy, these people are friendly! But enough about neighborly neighbors-it’s feeding time.

After shooing the ants away from my utensils and scrubbing off what appears to be molasses from the bowl in the back of the cupboard, I settle down to watch a grainy rerun of what used to be a show on Bravo, but is now spliced with the Home Shopping Network and the shadow of a Knicks game. I tell you, SLU comes up with the greatest innovations! Instead of having to settle on a show that satisfies everyone, you, your grandma and your boyfriend can all plant yourselves in front of the same television! SLU is improving family time; we’re all about bettering the families here at Saint Louis University.

I move to stand up and realize that the stiff substance, that had previously adhered to the paint-splattered couch, has now transferred onto my sweatpants. That’s OK! I hear that a Pepsi-semen mixture is the new trend for those who like their pants skinny and stained.

I jump from chair to chair down the line of furniture I set up so as to avoid getting stuck on the gummy hardwood floor. I need to shower before class, but I realize that I’ll have to wait two and a half hours since my roommate took a shower half an hour ago and the cute little 2 feet by 2 feet bathroom needs at least three hours to defog. My math skills have improved, which Marchetti employees predicted after advising me to shower with the door open as a substitute to the absent ventilation system.

I lurk around on Facebook while waiting for the delousing tank until the Internet stops working. I’m told that the wireless installation is a great asset, and I’m more than happy to pay the hefty fee for its upkeep, since my Dell desktop has had multiple problems about which the Tech Interns are perplexed. (That is, until I pointed out that the power button is on the front of the monitor. Then we were a go for the installation of 12 new versions of antivirus software.)

By 7 a.m., the bathroom is defogged and ready for my off-key Al Green impersonation. I know that I have at least four minutes of lukewarm showertime before the drain plugs up with God-knows-what (leftover from the summer, since the apartment was never cleaned before my August arrival) and water begins puddling on the ceiling. It’s like taking two showers at once: there’s hard water coming out of the showerhead and yellow oil dripping from the ceiling! Do they have yellow water in heaven, or is this just heaven on SLU’s earth? I feel like singing!

After my shower, I realize that I can still hear water coming from somewhere. I dash into my bedroom and go through the well-rehearsed action of placing pots and pans to catch the rain cascading down from around my window. My curtains are stiff, the walls are flaking off and the ceiling is dissolving, but it just adds character to this jungle that is the Marchetti Towers. It is a pleasure to reside in this mold-spotted sauna-it’s a lesson in marine biology! It’s like living in a live-action Petri dish: all of the mold, none of the people poking you with plastic gloves.

The opportunity to live on campus is highly underappreciated by those snobby rich brats whose parents are too concerned about their health and well-being to let their child live the slummin’ college life. So what if these kids got enough love in their childhoods? Who cares if they’ll live longer due to healthier lungs? And what does it matter that I now have three ears, am infertile and hiccup every time someone says “8.5 percent”? As I lay my head down at night to go to sleep and listen to the couple in the apartment above banging like a screen door in a hurricane, I realize that there’s no rivaling my Marchetti home sweet home. Fire hazards, faulty wiring, water damage and secondhand smoke are all a part of the Marchetti experience, so toughen up if you want to be a true SLU student. Everybody’s doing it.