The Unavoidable Ailment We Can Call the College Crud
John Culver
It starts with an itch in the throat. Later on, the itch starts to inch closer and closer to the base of the throat. You start to cough, but you tell yourself that it is nothing. A few days go by and whatever bothered you before seems innocuous. Yet, later that day, you start to lose energy, focus, and motivation. "Wow I am tired," you say to yourself, and you try to reason that you did not get enough sleep and that you will feel better tomorrow after some more rest.
Tomorrow rolls around and that itch begins to burn down your throat and you feel like a brick hit you square in the face. Congestion soon ensues, and you have to conclude that you are not entirely sick, yet you are far from prime capabilities and acceptable cognitive performance.
Borrowing the phrase from Senator John McCain, "my friends," it looks like you have the college crud. The college crud is a phenomenon that goes medically undiagnosed year in and year out. It originates in the uncleanness of college dorm rooms. It lays and reproduces exponentially on filthy floors, idle microwaves, and the unwashed sheets of many students. It leaps onto desks and lonely lamps.
No one can see it without a creative imagination or without the help of an electromagnetic microscope. It strives on half-filled, open beer cans and on the tops of undusted drawers and refrigerators. It forms a symbiotic relationship with the population of people who believe that showering at intervals of forty-eight hours is acceptable.
The college crud is a subtle epidemic that infects almost every college in the U.S. (yes, the Ivy League as well, no school is impregnable). It is not preventable, but it is important to know that once you have the college crud, the pain is ephemeral. But, unlike chicken pox, you will get the college crud on multiple unfortunate occasions.
So how do you treat the tide? The instructions are not so simple. You first have to realize that antibiotics are out of the question, and over the counter medicine has proven meagerly successful. Seek help at the local hospital? No. Clean your room? Good idea, but no. You need to pass it on to another student; share food, drinks, books, everything. You also have to drink three cartons of orange juice and a bucket of no-doze nightly.
Yet, these remedies are solely my prescriptions, and a panacea has yet to be found.
I wanted to get the opinions of two students at two different colleges. First, I interviewed my friend, Zach from the University of South Carolina:
John Culver: So how would you describe the the crud?
Zach: Weird, flemmy cough.
JC: Would you say there is some sort of progressive development of the illness?
Z: Uh… if I had to say there is a progression… I don't know, it just reaches a point where it doesn't go away. You wake up with it one morning and it keeps coming back for more.
JC: Any other side effects?
Z: I don't know, not being able to study. I am not sure. I don't do that anyway.
JC: Where would you say it originates?
Z: I am fairly certain that that stuff comes from playing beer pong off of dusty cups.
JC: Anything else to add?
Z: At Trinity, I am pretty sure that a major source of the crud comes from Jarvis. It begins there at room 108.
As I hung up the phone, Zach started coughing horrendously.
Still, with no remedy in sight, I reached for my phone and dialed my other friend, Colin, who attends Villanova University:
John Culver: How would you describe the crud? In other words, what symptoms do you have?
Colin: Sleepy; always have a scratchy sore throat and congested.
JC: Where would you say it comes from?
C: The gross-ass dorm rooms and the (expletive) food. The food might have laxatives in it (expletive)… always get rough stomachs from bad food.
JC: What percentage of people would you say have the crud off and on?
C: Everyone I know. I don't know an exact percentage but probably 90 percent.
JC: Any solutions for curing it?
C: Move off campus.
JC: Thanks for trying man.
C: Good luck.
While Zach and I could not agree on a remedy, Colin's proposal to move off campus was insightful but not always practical. We cannot all move off campus because surely some of us will bring the crud with us. For students already off campus, one could argue that they are in a better predisposition. So it seems we are just going to have to stick with it. Understand and accept that it is one of the thorns of being a college student.
Let it come and go, pass it along, drink 'no-doze,' overdose on orange juice, sleep for 48 hours, or move off campus if you haven't done so already. While in college, the crud will stay with you wherever you go, for it is a moveable yeast.
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