Basement Files: Misapplication letter

Westmont University
Office of Admissions
400 Regency Circle

Dear Admissions Officer,

My name is Lonnie Hartman and I'm applying for admission to Westmont's incoming class of 2004. To be honest, I don't really know why. Did you guys know what you wanted to do back when you were applying? It must have been harder for you, writing to people who held the very job you coveted. It must have had some of that same hall-of-mirrors self-consciousness as applying for a job as human resources director and groveling before someone you hope to displace but whom you realize can see right through all your little interview tricks.

I suppose I'm going to college because I can longer be sold into apprenticeship. I do understand that if this were the 1700s, I'd already be indentured to a cobbler and doing what I could to make eye contact with his 12-year-old daughter over the foot molds. I guess the armed services are the modern form of apprenticeship (and the ancient one, too), but I view the Army as I do jail: a place where jungle cruelty and sodomy are sanctioned by the inmates, the guards, the government. And that leads me back to you.

In truth, there is little to recommend me. My grades are good, but artificially so, the result of a rampant grade inflation that resembles Germany's pre-war bread pricing. It's less that I rose to the top of my class than I merely held my ground as others fell, just as an unusually low tide can make a normally submerged feature seem all the more remarkable. I am, in fact, remarkably unsuited to all intellectual pursuit. Were I any less curious about the world and its competing philosophies, I could easily see myself joining Jessica Simpson in the Bush cabinet.

As you can see from the attached vita, I'm not much of a joiner. And I doubt that will change much once I call your campus home. I can't see myself joining a fraternity. I've suffered enough rejection at the hands of women and just the thought of being rejected by men, even handsome men in loafers, is enough to hollow my soul. Nor can I see myself becoming engaged with student government. It seems to attract the same people who once found student council so compelling and who, having suffered through a long summer without a faculty advisor's ass to kiss, have become even more insanely excited by faux democracy.

No, I'll probably just stick to the lazy, non-committed edges of student life. My only stab at engagement will probably be the adoption of some outrageous political position, voiced with a fervor inversely proportional to my understanding of its complexity. For instance, I may briefly champion the Palestinian cause, but will probably drop it as soon as I discover it can't be reduced to romantic slogans or graphically appealing T-shirts. (Let's face it, there's only one Che.)

No individual cause will hold my interest one second longer than the rally which alerted me to its existence. If you ever see me shouldering global concerns, be assured that a girl is involved. There's nothing I won't do to falsely impress them. I'll probably just quit going to school one semester, but will, out of shame or laziness, forget to properly withdraw. And when confronted by the 0.00 GPA, I'll spin a story of family suffering worthy of Sam Shepard for the records office.

Look, I know I sound like an asshole, but I'm not. I did some good shit in high school. For instance, I was never a bully. Not because I lacked the badgering instinct, but because I lacked the size. And I was the only senior at McKinley to recognize in sophomore Maggie Kinset an obscure and beguiling beauty, one I immortalized in lengthy showers that drained the hot water heaters of house and scrotum. The thought would sicken her now (rightly, I think) but I wonder if it might not trigger a faint smile of delight at her 20-year reunion.

You may also notice that I was president of the German Club. (It's a searing indictment of the modern educational system that an otherwise decent teacher can, with a single well-timed compliment, talk you into just about any kind of humiliation.) You may never encounter an emptier laurel on a resume, but the presidency did, in its own way, inform my choice of majors.

Last Thanksgiving, my esteemed Kaiserhood was mentioned at the dinner table and it naturally provoked demands that I say something in German. Well, in the moment, I couldn't summon a fricking thing. After a few moments of humiliating silence, my Uncle Stan said, "A year and a half of German, president of the goddamn club, and he can't say `I have cigarettes to trade.'"

With the table's laughter ringing in my ears and my cheeks burning with shame, I vowed to select a major that invited little inquiry. Not just something obscure, but something repellent. Even intimidating majors like physics elicit questions about the galaxy's operating principles. No, I'm hoping to pick something that may force me to defend it as a choice, but would never put me in the position of having to explain its accumulated knowledge or methodology.

So I'm thinking about sociology. I don't think anyone has a casual interest in sociology (and really, what interest beyond casual could that lazy discipline possibly sustain?) besides wanting to know how I hope to make a living at it. And I've got a solid six years of college to come up with an answer for that one. And I'd very much like to spend those six years at Westmont. Thanks in advance for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Lonnie Hartman