Call the police, Remaly suggested.

I called the police.

"We don't handle that for the river houses," said Dispatcher Bonnie Louison, of the Harvard Police Department. "They have a policy of handling that themselves."

Excuse me?

"The security guard can let you in at five o'clock, when he comes on duty," Louison said. "If you want to get in earlier, you have to call your Senior Tutor."

So much for protect and serve. The HUPD, whose salaries I subsidize, arrest homeless people for taking cans out of dumpsters. They participate in elaborate, risky drug stings with other local police departments. They break up perfectly good, totally harmless parties on a whim. They are even alleged to racially harass students and each other, and then refuse to investigate that properly.

But they can't unlock my dorm room.

So I called my senior tutor. I had been meaning to introduce myself to her for some time, but had hoped for a better, less embarrassing occasion than a Saturday morning when I was locked out of my room.

Unfortunately, though she was very friendly and supportive, my senior tutor couldn't help me. She didn't have the keys to Claverly. So she said I should call the police again, and tell them that it was their responsibility to let me into my room.

What about the river house policy, I asked.

That doesn't exist, she told me.

I called the police again.

"The watch commander told me there are no exceptions to the rule," Dispatcher Louison told me this time. "The river houses have their own policy."

But my senior tutor said...

"You have to take that up with the chief," said Dispatcher Louison, adding that the chief doesn't work on Saturdays.