BACK TO SCHOOL FAQs

Every year at this time, our kids are returning to school. There’s the ritual of back-to-school sales, tearful goodbyes, and meeting the new roommates. It’s also the time college students’ minds turn to murder. Here is a representative sampling of the mail we get:

1. “If I kill my roommate, will I get straight A’s?”

MH: If I had a dollar for every time I get this question, I could retire and hire others to kill for me. Unfortunately, this is an urban myth. After extensive research, I believe I have found its source. Richard III appears to have killed or had killed one of his classmates at Eton (legend has it he did not like the sobriquet Limp Dick). The faculty, fearing for its own wellbeing, appears to have given him highest marks in all his studies. Since I have found no mention of this myth prior to Richard III, I am fairly confident it is the origin. So no, the death of a roommate, regardless of cause, does not mean straight A’s—what actually happens is that the school allows you to take an incomplete (I) and finish the work when you are less dpressed or distressed.

2. I will be spending a semester abroad in Grenoble, France. Is it okay to kill the French?

MH: Mais oui! Ha ha. Everyone wants to kill the French, even the French. I think the only people with more self-loathing may be the Swedes, at least if films are any guide to Zeitgeist. Back to the question: killing the French is perfectly acceptable, but we do not want to reinforce the stereotype of the Ugly American. As the guest in a foreign land, do not kill the family hosting you or their friends. Find a neighboring village and kill there. Generally speaking, if you kill the lazy artist types that just hang around smoking unfiltered cigarettes, wearing berets, and drinking wine all day the villagers will be happy enough to have those leeches gone that they will not care. REMEMBER: studying abroad is a privilege and we do not want to ruin it for the next generation of college students. NOTE: for students studying in other countries, the same instructions apply: kill the social leeches in the neighboring towns and people will celebrate; kill your host family and the entire Study Abroad program could be put in jeopardy.

3. If I kill all the jocks, will a cheerleader go out with me. Norbert

MH: No. No one will ever go out with you so long as your name is Norbert. Transfer to another school under the name “Alessandro” and come up with an Italian affect and you might get a date. And while it may not have any impact on your getting a date, I would still encourage you to kill all the jocks.

4. Have there been any famous college killers? My dorm walls are kinda bare.

MH: If you are this unaware, then how did you get into college? Did your parents pay for the football stadium or endow a chair? Of course, any history of college killers must begin in Texas (surprise surprise). A University of Texas student, Charles Whitman, killed 14 and wounded another 32 from his sniper position at the top of the bell tower, 29 stories up—that’s some shootin’. Then, for those of you with short memories, our Virginia Tech killer, Seung-Hui Cho, who killed 32 and wounded a bunch more (is this a case of the overachieving Asian kid having to do better even at killing than the white kid?). The problem with both of these men was they did not come up with a good name first. No one remembers them: at best, they are remembered as the UT sniper or the VT massacre. What kind of fame is that? All that killing and it’s the school that gets remembered, not the killer. Oh yeah, your question: because these young men did not come up with cool names first, you will not find posters of them. You’ll have to resign yourself to Monet’s Waterlilies and the Grateful Dead like everyone else in your dorm.