The smell of Class 

Watching the Harvard Hasty Pudding Theatricals and the full unmitigated force of their wit and love for the stage, and feeling star-struck by the charisma of Cynthia Erivo, had made the painful $228 splurge on the ticket worth it. 

Yet sometimes, in moments like these, tucked shoulder to shoulder next to glamorous girls and the old and retired, I am reminded of the side of Harvard I never got to see. This is the old and established elitism that would not have agonised over spending money on this ticket. I look at all the boys buttoned up with their suit and bow tie. Not one of them wore second-hand from the father-figures lounging around with their arms crossed and talking over the greying heads of one another. I think that besides the envelope with a paper ticket I clutch in my hand, there’s other entrance fees to be paid — the price of a well-tailored evening suit that they would never brag about having it made in Vietnam for cheap. Class has the smell of a dark-eyed deer staring out of the cloying musk of perfume, watching me fidget in the seat that I paid for but cannot afford.