You’re Not Fooling Me. You’re Just Pissing Me Off!

The question hangs in the air like the stench of vomit in the New Quincy elevator. My fellow section mates and I glance downward, furiously writing notes. We don’t want to get put on the spot. The seconds tick by. The TF waits.

But then a throat clears. Someone has chimed in!

“Thank goodness,” we say to ourselves. But suddenly our hearts go still. This is not the freshman girl who does all the reading. This is the self-proclaimed “bullshitter.”

God help us all.

We’re all guilty of trying to sound like we cracked our $60 sourcebooks by bullshitting, but some people just cross the line. The extreme bullshitter is under the impression that he’s fooling the TF (who has done the reading at least once—maybe). In reality, though, the TF is rolling her eyes with the rest of the class.

“Well actually,” says Mr. Popped Collar, “I think one could take an Emersonian response to this question if we look at it through the lens of Hegelian dialectical theory.”

The smug bullshitter, thinking his job is done, sits back.

“Um, what?” says the TF, looking to the smartass for elaboration.

And suddenly, the elaborate plot of the bullshitter has been foiled. What? You mean using words like “juxtaposition” and “dichotomy” doesn’t automatically make my answer correct?

No, you transparent ass.

Maybe that worked back at Roxbury Latin, but this isn’t your four-person seminar about Fitzgerald. This is Harvard. Your TF is smarter than you are. And if you think you can fool her by dropping Weber, you are an even bigger tool than that weird bearded kid who always sleeps through section.

So shut your mouth. I think freshman girl might actually have something important to say.