Scenario One: "Cool!" An 8-Ball! I remember these!" our male friend says. He then pauses to think a moment, shakes the ball and reads the message with great interest. We shudder to think what question he asked.

Scenario Two: Examining the belly of John Black the Iguana, our male friend finds a surprise. "Hey! A suction cup!" he yells. Then he clumsily sticks our iguana on the TV set or computer screen. Thirty seconds later, the plastic reptile falls to the floor. Poor John.

Scenario Three: Pointing at the sacred Lego phone, the visitor exclaims, "Oh my God! Did you make that?"

He pokes at the bricks, trying to figure out which are buttons and which are removable pieces. We probably have to keep an eye on him; he might build high Lego walls around the "3" button. Then how will we call all the other guys?

We wish the entire Harvard world was exactly like our room. Then life would be perfect.

We've actually tried to reproduce Shiny Happy C-26 in Harvard's somber libraries. During reading period last semester, John Black caught a ride to Lamont in a coat pocket. We read Freud and Civil War history, and he sat aside patiently, his mouth open wide in an ecstatic grin. He wanted us to do well; we're sure of this. We get loving support from all our little toy pals.

The price we pay is cleanliness. Lego body parts litter the carpet, Play-Doh cans get kicked under the desks, and pieces of our Cornhusker State puzzle end up in our shoes. "This place is a sty," we've been told.

But it's not a sty--a pig sty is gross, filled with slop. Our mess is not slimy. It's whimsical. It's creative. It's the kind of mess we remember from childhood. We have no gnawed pizza crusts from three weeks ago, no half-filled cans of warm Coke. These are only toys; they don't smell and they don't spoil. Perhaps the Play-Doh could dry out and get stale, but we're careful to close the lids tightly. We are very sanitary with our mess.

There's one thing we should make clear: We do not, repeat DO NOT consider ourselves materialistic. Just because we have the most toys does not mean we are aspiring yuppies.

But we do know one thing: With all of our kiddie memorabilia, we're ahead of you all. Everyone's seen the bumper sticker that says, "Whoever dies with the most toys wins."

That would be us.