Forty years ago, at a large, urban U.S. campus that shall remain nameless, I was a grad assistant who taught two classes back to back, so I kept the water in the office coffee pot hot while I was teaching my first class. Then I would refill my cup between classes and shut it off for the day, since everyone else was finished with classes. One day, I stopped in for the daily ritual, and someone had emptied the pot. I was just mad enough to do some investigation, and I discovered that the grad office next door (which didn’t have a coffee pot) had a new “grad assistant” move in at the beginning of the term. I found out that he slept on the couch in the office “a lot,” and no one knew his name. He was also known to be a user of our office’s coffee pot, so that was motivation enough for me to report him to the department office. It turned out that he had a mattress and some extra clothes (all of which were stereotypical academic costumes at the time) stashed in the attic of the building. Campus security removed him and his belongings.

A week later, I saw him on my way to the campus swimming pool. He was wearing an athletic jacket with a whistle on a lanyard around his neck.

Just wear the right costume, and you’ll fit in…