Tripped toggle reveals truth about texts
In a way, I really enjoyed being a night janitor. Sure, the
hours were lousy and the pay was worse, but for some
reason, ever since I was a kid 1 had always enjoyed cleaning
things. That’s why when the University maintenance crew
took me on as head work-study janitor for PLC they got the
biggest bargain ever, because I left no comer unmopped
and no book undusted in my relentless pursuit of spotless
ness.
So it was that in the midst of a particularly industrious fit
of midnight polishing, I make my momentous discovery. I
was working in die office erf a psychology professor
coincidentally, one of my psychology professors — when I
got die notion to scrub the underside of the heating register. I
was really getting into the job, determined to make the old
neglected aluminum gleam so that anyone who might, im
probably, squat down and inspect it would see his or her
own startled face peering back, when my cloth struck, and
flipped, a toggle switch hidden in the deepest recess of the
space beneath die register.
Suddenly the whirring sound of some invisible motor
filled the room, and, spinning around, I saw an ornate,
framed diploma bearing my professor’s name swing away
from the wall, revealing an empty space behind.
My curiosity thoroughly aroused, I stood and crossed
the room to peer inside the mysterious cavern. At first it
appeared to be empty, but as my eyes adjusted to the gloom
I was able to discern a thin pamphlet resting against the back
of the depression. Warily, 1 reached inside and brought the
little volume into the bright neon light of the office. The
cover bore this inscription:
“Translation: Cognition and Post-Machiavellian Ab
stractionism.”
I didn’t know what to make of that I knew that “Cogni
tion...” was the name of a textbook, because it was the main
text for “Existentialization of Neo-interrationality,’’ the class
that I was taking from this professor. But 1 couldn’t imagine
what was meant by ‘Translation,” because the textbook
was a truly mammoth tome, and a verbatim translation into
any language wouldn’t even come close to fitting in the
pamphlet that I held. Consequently, my curiousity was burn
ing as I opened the cover and read the first page. All that was
written there, however, was:
“Chapter 1
People think.”
Now I was really confused. I had read that chapter two
months ago, and though I couldn’t remember exactly what it
said, 1 recalled that it was a long section, at least 80 pages,
and that it had taken me a week to get through it
Determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, I
trotted out to the hall, got my backpack, and pulled out the
textbook, using the “clean and jerk” method to avoid strain
ing my back. I flipped to the first paragraph of Chapter One
and began to read:
“The cognitive intro-extro inspectionism of self-and
environmentally investigative homo erectus, coupled ex
pansionisticaily with the inherent evaluatory subliminal con
scious reasoning capabilities of closed and open cycle reflec
tion (and, as a necessary adjunct, correction) must, impera
tively, react with an innate, polylevel, associative ‘perceptual
set,’ imbued with superstructure! dogmatism that, while cir
cumscribing certain revelatory assumptions, allows for crea
tive expression in a context of morality-aware discoveryism.
This superstructure is delineated by...”
It went on like that through all 80 pages, liberally sprink
led with notations for footnotes that screamed “Ibid. pg.
Hidden translations reveal it's all a sham
1,284” and “Finkdstein et al.” at the bottom of each page,
sometimes in such profusion that the footnotes shoved the
text off the page altogether. But no matter how much I read,
it all said the same thing...people think.
1 suddenly realized that 1 was on to something—some
thing big. That switch was no architectural afterthought — it
was built right into the room’s circuitry, and 1 was willing to
bet it wasn’t the only one in the building. 1 smelled a conspi
racy, a gigantic one, and as I raced down the hallway, I was
determined to find out how many professors were involved
in this heinous crime that condemned students to pay exor
bitant book prices, study long hours, and pull shoulders out
of sockets as they struggled with huge, useless volumes of
prattle.
1 skidded to a halt in front of my sociology professor1 s
office, jammed the pass key into the lock, rushed inside,
found the hidden toggle switch, flipped it, and pulled
another tiny volume from behind the hinged diploma. The
tide of this one was “Translation: Pseudo-lnteractionality for
Discorporated Gestaltism” and I pulled the appropriate text
— deadlifting this time — out of my pack and opened it at
random; to Chapter 17, as it turned out.
“Various socializing exigencies,” the text read, “can
level demoralizing remonstrances at non-ego-insulated
peronalities, exacerbating existing guilt-self-recriminations,
and fostering a normless climate that gives rise to anomie,
As I sat in the last office of the building, thumbing
through a matchbook-sized “translation” of a graduate
philosophy text titled “Metaphorically Masochistic
Metaphysics,” I tried to decide what my next move should
be. 1 would release the information, of course, but the
question was — to whom? The Emerald? Too small. The
Register-Guard? Still too small, this was big news. Finally, I
decided to give Daniel Schorr a call — the nation had to
know about it.
I had just finished the translation of Chapter 33, which
read “people exist,” when 1 heard a key rattle in the office
door. The professor! Panicked, 1 flew across the room and
threw the tiny leaflet back into the vault, but it was too late.
As the door opened the withered old man, with a battered
pipe clutched in his false teeth, saw me shoving the diploma
back into place.
^ “Oh my God!” he cried, clutching his heart “You
there! What are you doing! Stop, I say, stop!”
But I didn’t stop, I leaped over him as he collapsed in
the doorway, gasping, and I charged topspeed down the
hall.
“Stop him!” croaked the old professor. “He knows!
Lord help us, he knows!”
Cries of alarm began ringing through the hall along with
the desperate, clumping sound of shuffling sexagenarians in
vain pursuit, but I didn’t look back. Charging full-tilt up to
Graphic by Sand strom
alienation, nonrealization of idealized communal id
satiators, and dissipation of image-construction mechanisms
on a dramatically descending continuum. Under the vicis
situdes of modified pre-Veblenism...” and on and on, I
remembered it faintly from a bleary-eyed all-nighter I had
pulled at midterm time. 1 flipped through the little pamphlet
to the “Chapter 17” page and read:
“Society can screw you over.”
I spent the rest of that night clomping around all nine
floors of the building, flipping switches and reading pam
phlets, and by the time a rosy glow began to spread behind
the art museum I was thoroughly disgusted. We had all been
duped, I realized, all 16,500 of us, by this cruel plot
Some of the “translations” — ironically, the ones for
the largest texts — scarcely filled two tiny pages, and in one
political science professor’s office I discovered a pamphlet
for the text “Bourgeois Ipso-Factoism and God” that simply
stated “This book doesn’t say anything.”
the glass doors 1 nearly ripped them from their hinges as I
raced out into the crisp morning air. But a chillingly calm
voice followed me through those doors, and I glanced
around to see my psychology professor pointing menacingly
through the glass.
“Dont’t worry about it,” he was saying to his colleagues.
“I know who he is.”
Impossibly, I increased my speed after that, zooming
through campus and down two blocks to my little studio
apartment. 1 tore open the door and dived for the phone, but
it rang before I could reach it.
“Uh, hello?” I panted.
‘‘Well, well, well, and how’s our little janitor today?”
said an icy, ominous voice. “Been doing a little extra-duty
cleaning, I hear.”
“Who is this!”
“Never mind about that,” said the voice. “The impor
tant question is, what do you plan to do now? Believe me, it
would be best for you, me, and this little piece of paper 1 have
here in front of me if you’d just keep it as our little secret.”
“Like hell 1 will!” I bellowed. “Listen, what I saw tonight
was the lowest, most despicable, depraved...uh...what piece
of paper?”
“Oh, it’s a cute little thing,” said the voice. “It’s a beauti
ful blonde color with bright, perky blue writing at the top that
says “Financial Aid Grant.”
“No!” I cried. “You fiend, you sick, twisted fiend! If
you’ve done anything to hurt that...”
“Now, now, your little grant is just fine.”
“I don’t believe you! Let me hear it!”
There was a sound of rustling paper in the earpiece.
“Okay, okay,” I said, trying to steady myself. I took a
deep, shuddering breath and let it out slowly. ‘ ‘What do you
want me to do?”
“Nothing much, really,” the voice said casually. Then,
Intently, “Just forget what you saw last night.”
But I can’t...you shouldn’t...they wouldn’t...”
‘Or maybe you’d like us to mail your grant back to
you’ the voice whispered venemously, “one piece at a
time! This was followed by an ominous, mirthless laugh
that rose to a piercing cackle. I slammed the receiver into the
cradle and sat down heavily, in a quandary.
And I still don’t know what to do. Like an American
Solzhenitzen, I’ve teetered on the brink of publishing what I
know dozens of times, only to find my conviction weakening
as a vision of myself being forced to drop out and plant trees
in Veneta wells up into my conscious mind. So for the time
being, I ve decided to sit tight, and follow the advice of a
‘translation’’ of an ROTC textbook entitled “Prerequisites
for Advancement in the Military Milieu.” This pamphlet
wasn t divided into chapters, since apparently one short
phrase served to sum up the entire volume.
“Don’t make waves.”