A friend of mine unwittingly missed the deadline for handing in study cards and soon discovered that his slip had cost him $40. My first impression was that this was an absurd amount to pay for handing in a bubble sheet one day late, so I called the registrar to do a little investigating.

All is clear now. After talking to Dewey Cheatham '65, Assistant Dean in Charge of Study Cards, I understand why we must pay through the nose for late cards.

Apparently, there is only one man in the entire world who is qualified to feed the bubble sheets into the reader machine. And he lives on a mountain-top in Tibet. When study cards are handed in late, he must be recalled, a proposition made all the more expensive by the fact that this bubble-sheet guru refuses to travel by any means except on the back of the long-haired mountain yak.

To further exasperate the situation, this breed of Yak went extinct 10 years ago during the tragic Tibetan Yak Massacre of '85. Harvard is forced to clandestinely send trusted administrators in Yak disguise to serve as bearers for the elusive bubble-sheet guru.

Thus, it is clear that we should be thankful to our munificent administrators who keep the study-card late fees down to the reasonable price of $40.