I used to take summer classes at Harvard. At the beginning of one session — I can’t remember which — I nearly ran into a helicopter that was landing in front of the Science Center, shepherding in an obscenely rich student to class. The latter small-talk variations on who it was — “I hear it was the Sheikh of Allston.” “The Shiekh?” “There’s a reason we want their land, you know.” — were endless.
Some time during that same session, I was walking either to Inman, somewhere in Somerville, the Natural History Museum, or the museum at the corner of Broadway (in other words: I’ve completely forgotten) when I spotted a tour group across the street wearing name tags that had the subtitle, “CIA.” And it was a whole group of them!
So I trotted over to the back of the line, asked one of them what they were doing on campus, which led to the following exchange —
“Well, if I told you — “
”No!”
“I’d have to — “
”Really?“
