VIEWPOINT / JOHN JOHNSON : ‘It’s kind of funny when you think about it.’ : A Couple of Bucks Later, Secrets of Successful Cheating Remain Secret
The editor dropped a story idea on my desk the way editors do, with a hastily scribbled, misspelled note attached. It is a conceit in our business to spell things wrong on purpose among ourselves, perhaps as a rebellion against being required to spell things right the rest of the time.
“U wanna look inna this?” said the note. What he meant was that I should use the superior reporting skills that have helped me win many cheap plaques in journalism contests, some of which I got without even buying the required $100 worth of tickets for the awards dinner.
Attached to the note was a flyer that has been showing up around the UCLA campus.
“Get The Easy A,” it said.
“Cheat!!!”
There is nothing new about students cheating in college. But the person behind these UCLA flyers had a vision not unlike that of the McDonald brothers, the Pep Boys and the Doublemint twins. Like the pioneers of mass-marketed burgers, gum, and auto parts, he proposed to develop this cheating thing from an informal hobby into the next business phenomenon.
He envisioned an egalitarian paradise where the secrets of cheating are shared with the whole world. No employer need ever again worry about whether the grade point average of this or that job applicant had been inflated with larceny. They all would be inflated.
No one could ever again complain about the poor quality of American education. Anyone who didn’t graduate with straight A’s would have only him or herself to blame for not sending in $2 to learn the secrets of cheating.
In case there were any students so out of touch with the modern world as to think it morally wrong to cheat, the flyer hastened to put them at ease. Lots of people cheat, it said. Anyone who recalls the smiling looters waving to their families on television knows this is true. In fact, cheating and stealing have ceased to be crimes at all and are now covered by advisories, something like warning labels on cigarette packages.
There’s nothing wrong with it unless some cop or super-righteous, religious fanatic is around to try and make you feel guilty. The looters overcame their guilt. So don’t worry about it.
“Learn the fundementals from the best,” it added. Whoever was behind this must be good, I thought. Here was someone who could not spell “fundamentals” correctly, yet who still has launched a business. Now that’s the American go-getter spirit. He refused to be intimidated by ignorance. Not when the simulacrum of knowledge can be had for a few bucks.
And not just any old disposable, forgettable knowledge. But the kind of knowledge that counts and is directly applicable to the real world: the answers to test questions.
Some great thinker put it best when he said, “Teach a man to repair a car and you’ve given him greasy fingernails. Teach him how to hot-wire one and you’ve given him transportation.”
The flyer said interested people should send $2 and a self-addressed, stamped envelope to “Cheat” at an address in Chatsworth. “Guaranteed delivery in 5-7 days,” it said.
We in the newspaper business don’t do this every day. But I decided this was the kind of story that required undercover work. This person must be stopped before he corrupted again.
So, posing as just another lazy student, I mailed my money off to the address and sat back and waited to spring my trap. Once I got the packet of contraband material in the mail, I would present myself to Mr. Cheat himself.
Days passed. My editor wandered by my desk occasionally to ask timidly if I had any stories for him to put in the paper. “Come on man, can’t you see I’m undercover?” I told him.
I had to start wearing sunglasses and drinking beer at my desk just to remind him that I was posing as a student.
“Lots of college students work hard,” he said. I sputtered, spraying sunflower seeds all over my computer. “Not students who cheat,” I said, my voice rising in irritation at his failure to understand how carefully I was playing my part.
Two weeks passed and my mailbox was still empty. Finally, I drove over to the address in Chatsworth to confront the villain and warn him that he was now compounding his sins by not sending me my package. In journalism we call it failure to cooperate with an investigative reporter and there’s nothing worse, unless it’s dying before your obituary is written. I found the address was a mail drop.
A friendly man behind the counter told me each mail box rents for $10 a month. No, he couldn’t tell me who had rented box number 257.
“Over 95% of the people who rent the boxes are legal,” he said, refusing to give his name. “But there are some scammers.”
By scammers, he meant con men who hoodwink people into sending money to them, thinking that they are communicating with a person with a legitimate address.
Not too many people fall for that though, he said. People have gotten a lot smarter about sending off money.
“Mind your own business,” I said.
“It’s kind of funny when you think about it,” he added. “This guy is cheating cheaters.”
When I returned to the office, I outlined the results of my undercover work to my editor. “An incredibly sophisticated scheme,” I said.
He told me to take off the sunglasses and get back to work.
“Can I put the $2 on my expense account?” I asked.
A few days later, my $2 arrived in the mail. There was no note, no explanation. Did the cheater have an attack of conscience? Should I feel renewed hope for the future of humanity?
I don’t know. My question is: should I return the expense account money?
