Bustin’ Kapps

My parents still take glee in the fact that when they asked me in fourth grade why I liked a particular girl in my class, I replied, “Because she gets her homework done on time.” I’m not sure if I’m more amazed that I was already that much of a dork at age 9 or that I had any interest in girls whatsoever. The one clear memory I have of fourth grade is encouraging a kid named Jeff to stick a pair of scissors in a light socket, which shorted out half the classroom and earned him an audience with the principal. So I’ll have to take mom and dad’s word that I had a homework fetish.

I mention this because it appears that my attraction to smart, independent, successful broads hasn’t changed. Dating a smart girl in college motivated me to drastically adjust my drinking-to-studying ratio, possibly even in favor of studying. Ultimately, though, she still whupped me like Stephen Hawking playing chess against Keanu Reeves. I’m all for women’s equality, but women’s total dominating superiority is a little hard on my ego.

Needless to say, then, I was extremely curious when I spied a newsletter on my girlfriend, Liz’s floor with the words “Phi Beta Kappa” emblazoned across the top of the front page. “What’s this?” I asked suspiciously. “I didn’t know you were in a sorority.” “That’s the Key Reporter,” she said. “It’s the Phi Beta Kappa society newsletter. It only gets sent to people who are way smarter than you.” OK, she didn’t say that last part, but it’s the truth. My old competitive fires sprung to life. I wanted to be in Phi Beta Kappa and get a newsletter. Never mind that the Key Reporter should be called the Dorkwad Daily and my GPA would be a more respectable ERA. I wanted in. So I sent an e-mail to Key Reporter editor and PBK director of PR Barbara Ryan, asking for help:

Dear Ms. Ryan,

A copy of the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s newsletter, the Key Reporter, recently fell into my hands, and I greedily devoured each word until my intellectual belly was veritably distended (were I a bovine, I would have selected John Churchill’s account of his newfound affinity for Tolstoy to chew as cud). My only regret is that I’d never heard of your fine organization until this week past. My petite amie, who has been a PBK member in good standing for some four years, informs me that members are typically elected in college based on academic merit. In my own case, I can only assume that there was some kind of grave oversight on the part of the election committee, for I was never contacted. As I earned my undergraduate degree in 1999, perhaps this was due to the widespread chaos caused by the Y2K bug.

I’m writing to ask you to correct this travesty by granting me a retroactive PBR membership. My qualifications, in brief:

•I managed a D+ in a calculus-based physics class without knowing a scrap of calculus. If I’d known a derivative from a deuteron I’m sure my grade would’ve been a full mark higher.

•I wrote a 50-page honors thesis on selected works by Raymond Carver. That’s roughly five times longer than any of Carver’s actual stories. To put that in perspective, my paper on War and Peace would total 7,500 pages, were I to write one.

•I had excellent school spirit. At one hockey game my senior year, I consumed the better part of a bottle of Captain Morgan’s Original Spiced Rum and expressed my school spirit by standing shirtless in the bleachers and informing the opposing goalie that he was a sieve (and a strainer, and a colander—being an intellectual, I had many synonyms at hand to vary the metaphor) until I was removed by security.

For the sake of modesty and brevity I’ll stop there, but I would be happy to provide you with a transcript or any other documentation you may require to complete my application. I look forward to making up for lost time in the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and so does my brain.

(secret handshake)

Ezra H. Dyer

She didn’t write back, so it seems I never will get a Phi Beta Krappa key. It’s probably just as well. I’ve heard that their hazing rituals involve reading the periodic table until you throw up. And Liz assures me that I’m very erudite and I shouldn’t be triste. For all I know, she could be right. ∂