The Tell-Tale Tartan
The idea first entered with levity.
A prank, someone said.
A joke, said another.
A bit, I asserted, and all agreed this was the fairest possible framing.
This was no exercise in greed. I desired not money and, indeed, am hardly starved of such, given my Californian parentage. Power neither did I want, for there is little to be gained by dominion over sporadically published gratis periodicals (which happen to serve chiefly as insulation, kindling, and versatile booth-construction material). No, I think it was the spirit of the thing: their hateful abundance! Those neat little stacks at dawn, those smug rectangular towers scarcely diminished by evening, those lavish budgets, all this pomp for some extraordinarily laughable publication – and on April Fools, it was meant to be especially laughable – for alongside those Tartans and Pillboxes, were to be the reverse: Natrats and Sexobllip; ostensibly serious journalism was to be complemented by allegedly humorous writing.
Observe now how methodologically we proceeded. We rose at five in the morning, an hour reserved for airport departures, buggy competitors, and the clinically unwell. We rendezvoused in the blue-grey predawn with the enthusiasm of those about to embark on something great and amusing. The mood was initially exuberant, subdued only by the weariness infusing every action and statement.
Two hours, we lurked. For, foolish as we were, we presumed the papers would be out by six, as is their wont; but hasty – too hasty by far! – were we. Breakfast was difficult: our anticipation curdled into nerves, our nerves into dread, our dread into anticipation again, and so forth in increasingly brief cycles. At last the time fell with a papery plop as we observed Tartans unceremoniously dropped onto a stand. With a graceful swiftness that would move angels and bank robbers alike to tears unlike, we descended.
My dear reader, we cleaned them out.
Two thousand five hundred Tartans.
Two thousand five hundred Natrats.
Two thousand five hundred Pillboxes.
Two thousand five hundred Sexobllip.
We took them all – or nearly all (indeed, I must digress here to crow that the Tartan’s staff believed we had made a comprehensive job of it, despite the fact that perhaps hundreds remained marooned in obscure nooks and random crannies across campus) – in armfuls and backpacks and the belief of something greater.
Our spoils were deposited in, of all places, my dorm room. There, they all lay in great accusatory heaps. It was no longer possible to sit still naturally: my chair rolled with a newfound resistance, the air itself had become papery and opening the window threatened an avalanche of such scale I might only have been found months later among then-vintage kindling.
Despite this, we exulted, taking photos with the exuberance of tourists at the Louvre. After all, the quantity was admirable, naturally, but so was our bravado; our ruthless, secret efficiency; and, above all, the absolute and undeniable stupidity of it all: for is not college to be spent on wasteful trivialities that amount to a thing of beauty?
Soon came word that the Tartan’s membership believed the disappearance had been the fault of their new printing company (and, to their credit, this did explain the initial delay in distribution). They were, we learned, considering demanding a refund. A refund!
Reader, you must try to imagine my torment (for it is one you doubtless and hopefully have never experienced). There are crimes against persons, crimes against property, crimes against humanity, and, above all, there is the unique and unbearable moral transgression of accidentally causing undergraduate editorial staff to send a sternly worded email. This, we could not allow and we reached out anonymously to an intermediary, the officer in charge of the Tartan’s communications, confessing the whole affair was nothing more than a foolish April Fools’ prank.
For our troubles came the threat of police action. For what? For larceny of the complimentary? For aggravated overcollection? For daring the Tartan to be funny? In point of fact, we were intending to only carry out the heist should the Natrat be hideously unfunny – which, admittedly, was a certainty – and, indeed, our ransom note – had events progressed that far – was to be nothing more than a few points on humor – nine point five theses on comedy, to be precise – and an apology.
But nonetheless we agreed to replace what we had displaced. There is no dignity in undoing a prank; once more we became beasts of burden, staggering under the weight of their ideas. Despite our redresses, we expected further condemnation, perhaps fury. Bizarrely though, we were asked to stop halfway through.
“Why?” you ask. I hear you and, though it pains me, tell you it was due to a misprint – they planned to reprint the issue anyway.
Can you comprehend the abyss that opened up in my soul? We had not interrupted the stream of the Natrat’s relentless history (incidentally, this august tradition has only been interrupted twice before, in 1994 and 2004, but modesty forbids me from saying more).
Anyway, what a waste of time it had been!
And yet – and yet! – was it not beautiful?
For what is Carnegie Mellon if not overengineered uselessness: spending hours on a project only to realize it had been rendered irrelevant; working and working and working and, ultimately, pranking only yourself? In the end, no, they still are not funny, whether intentionally or otherwise; but we were – whether intentionally or otherwise – and that is enough.