For weeks, sweaty students rushing into Borden’s locker room for a refreshing hot communal shower have reported extreme depression when they see empty hooks and forlorn racks. What began as a trickle of missing linens quickly swelled into a torrent of vanished terry cloth; over 200 towels unaccounted for since the start of the spring term. While laundry services insist it’s “just a mix-up,” whispers in the hallways point to something far more sinister: an orchestrated conspiracy to strip Borden of its precious drying cloths.
A student found crying outside the equipment room after resorting to using a football jersey to dry off, wept to reporters about his longing for his routine dryness.
“I remember my towel, I used the same one every time. It had a yellow stain right on the corner, it smelled like cat piss, it smelled like bleach,” snot erupted from his nose as he continued, “…It smelled like home,” said Anonymous ’25.
For many students, showering in Borden was a way for them to escape the updated, sterile dorm showers and instead cleanse themselves in the warm, homey embrace of Borden’s yellowed walls.
Disturbed and vulnerable students point a finger at Borden’s own cooperative market, where a savvy underground network might be hoarding towels to drive up “black-market” trade. If true, Borden’s underground economy may have spawned a textile cartel, trading terry for Mochi ice cream in broad daylight.
“I was approached while taking a dump,” says an unnamed Lower, “I was on my fifth round of TP, due to its extreme thinness, when a hand reached under the stall with a post-it proposing a trade of 1 microfiber for one snack at the Den.”
Other, more left-brained students report visions of late-night visitors to the basement corridor, and pale shapes drifting toward the laundry chute. Could a restless spirit — rumored to be the gym’s original matron, roaming the halls for thousands of years — be reclaiming linens as penance? Students report ghastly moans filling the hall, saying things like “moreee caaayyble, machiness.” While skeptics scoff, there are plans for a séance in Kemper next Thursday.
Without a reliable cloth supply, Borden’s hygiene and morale hang in the balance. As Borden braces for another week of hook-hung emptiness, one question remains: Why do all the ADT kids seem perfectly dry and happy?
