A Report to the Academy

Summer is an especially irritating time in Cambridge.  Aside from the heat and related sewer stench wafting from the colonial-era gutters, all the walkways on campus are cluttered with enormous groups of Japanese tourist.  Last spring's trip to Tokyo -- where even the most important-looking businessman was ready to come to a dead halt in the middle of a busy city street to help the confused White Devil read his map -- made me much more sympathetic to this demographic.  But when you're late to class and attempting to run across Harvard Yard with ten pounds of books strapped to your shoulders, the last thing you want to see is a group of smiling Asians posing on the stairs of the library.  Because, of course, this signifies that any effort on your part to cross between them and their photographer will inevitably ruin the picture they've traveled thousands of miles to have taken, thus ensuring that you'll have to waste at least three minutes idling in front of the Kodak moment or finding longer alternate paths to reach your destination.  

But the worst are the guided tours, obviously led by drama majors better suited to declaiming incendiary snippets from The Vagina Monologues.  What makes these spectacles so bad is that they happen on a semi-hourly basis, and that their scripted speeches never change, subjecting the innocent bystanders of the Harvard community to an endless loop of anecdotes about the Widener family or juicy tidbits about which famous Hollywood starlet stayed in which dorm.  After just two years, I feel fully qualified to give these kinds of tours.  All I need is a crimson hat, a big red sign, and a dignity lobotomy.  

Today, as I was waiting at a crosswalk, I cringed when I heard the telltale carnival-barker shriek coming up behind me.  "Stick together now!  We're about to begin!"  The crowd was composed of twenty-odd Japanese tourists in matching tan jumpsuits, and they all craned their necks at the sight of the Yard's front gate.  I prayed for a green light.  "Okay!  Now!  As some of you may have noticed..."  The light was still red but the traffic had stopped, so I quickly stepped onto the street and hurried across as fast as heels on cobblestones allow. "... the local Cambridgerians are notoooorious jaywalkers!  That's because local Cambridge driving law is unique, in that pedestrians always have the right of way!"  This is what monkeys must feel like in their cages, I thought, still hurrying to put as much distance between myself and the tour as I possibly could.  I'd always thought being considered a "tourist" was a terrible thing, but never in my life have I been more underwhelmed by the prospect of being taken for a "local."   Even after I'd made it to my department, I still couldn't shake the feeling that if I turned around, I'd be met with a blinding flash from a camera and a jumpsuited little girl's excited grin.  "And this is Harvard Yard.  And this is Widener Library.  And this is a Cambridgerian -- look, she's growling!  Probably just ready for lunchtime."