I have a secret, and it has been gnawing at my soul for the past year. I can no longer bear to keep it, but I think that despite the initial shame and pain, I will feel better afterward.

Charles, Deniz, Carlo, Gideon - I hope all of you will feel the same way.

The five of us actually had our theses ready last year. We went to Columbia to get away from the distractions of the lab and finish off the last few chapters. The horror began on our way back. The plane experienced turbulence right after take off. Even the veteran pilot could not maintain control of the plane, and as we were trying to climb over the Andes, one of the wings hit the side of a mountain. The plane broke into three parts, but amazingly, the section that we were sitting in crashed into a soft snow bank.

We emerged from the hull, shaken but thankful to be alive. There were no signs of the other sections of the plane. Only snow all around us. Our euphoria at being alive was soon eclipsed by the realization that it might be a while before we would be rescued. We had an airline-sized bag of peanuts between the five of us.

"I guess we'll have to ration the pea...," Gideon broke off in mid-sentence when we all heard the crunching behind us.

Charles was dusting the salt off his hands, and the empty wrapper flew past us in the brutal wind.

"OK, what now?"

"We're all going to die!"

"Everybody - just relax. There must be something in your carry-ons that we can eat. Think, people, think! That MIT education must be good for something."

"We can't eat it, can we?"

"No, but we haven't printed out the final copies of our theses yet, right? The bonded, acid-neutral, watermarked paper that the final copy is printed on is worthless. But our drafts are printed on good old-fashioned recycled paper. There must be some nutrients in there!"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying that if we want to survive, we'll have to eat our own theses."

"But, but... Oh, I can't."

"What will our advisors and committee members say? How will we be able to look them in the eye?"

"It's against nature! It's against everything I believe! But lord have mercy on our souls, I don't think we have a choice."

Eventually, everyone succumbed to king hunger. We could not look at each other while we ate, but eat we did. It's a good thing we were rescued a few weeks later, because we were down to an appendix, two pages of citations, and an acknowledgments section. I must say, that while Deniz' thesis had the most texture, Carlo's had the most ink, which really brought out the fruity undertones of Columbian paper.

We swore that we would not reveal our shameful secret to anyone. We would just spend the next few months regurgitating (as it were) all the work we had already done. There - the secret is out in the open. Judge us if you must, but would you have acted any differently were you in our place? Think about it while enjoying a beverage at

   G   I   R   L      S   C   O   U   T      B   E   N   E   F   I   T

7th floor playroom May 15, 1998 5:30 pm