Of scandals and anvils

I couldn't come up with a coherent response this morning when the dentist asked me, "What's up with [name redacted]? Are they just wacky or what?"

My mouth was benumbed by Novocaine and crowded with cotton so forming words in response was out of the question, which is fortunate because it's probably best not to gossip about campus scandals while surrounded by patients in a crowded dental office. Their mouths may be full of cotton but their ears aren't.

And I use the plural scandals advisedly. In the past, scandal has arrived singly like an anvil falling from a great height, but right now it seems to be raining anvils. I'm not going to say a single word about the [position redacted] who departed suddenly last month after [irresponsible action redacted], but one day the whole story will hit the local media and then there will be blood.

Right now, though, an even bigger scandal has finally hit the local press and everyone is talking about it, even my dentist, who wonders who in the current scenario might be described as wacky. (I'm not going to post the link, but open your ears at the dentist's office and you're bound to hear all about it.) 

This is not the first outbreak of scandal during my tenure here nor is it the most salacious--not by a long shot. My first semester here was marred by a sudden outbreak of crime-scene tape and FBI agents after the then-head of IT was found to have been operating a secret server distributing child pornography online, a scandal that resulted in a 100-year prison sentence cut short when the miscreant was murdered. I was so new that I'd never even met the guy, but every single time this scandal reared its ugly head in the news, the criminal's name was accompanied by the phrase Marietta College professor, which felt like a slap in the face to law-abiding professors who do not make a habit of distributing child pornography.

We're a pretty mild-mannered bunch on the whole, so other scandals have flown below the radar. (Now I have to wonder: Does radar detect falling anvils? If so, someone over in the business office ought to check the Acme catalog.) 

There was the faculty member suddenly forced to separate from the College after it was discovered that [pronoun redacted] had been holding full-time face-to-face teaching jobs at two separate institutions simultaneously, a faux pas that probably wouldn't even be detected today because of the prevalence of online teaching. There was the professor who celebrated his positive tenure decision a little too early, a celebration that allegedly took place on the futon in his office in the company of a student. There was the [position redacted] accused of smuggling vodka into commencement in a water bottle, which would have earned nothing more than a slap on the wrist if his criminal career had not also included domestic violence and arson threats. And can it possibly be true, as I've been told, that a previous [position redacted] found privacy for a tryst with a subordinate while driving through a car wash?

Such minor scandals are the stuff of legend, but as long as they stay out of the news, they don't have much impact on the rest of us. That's somebody else's anvil. A career may be flattened, but the shadow doesn't fall on me.

Now, though, we've got a sky full of anvils and nowhere to hide. I'm not implicated in any way and I'll probably be retired before the situation reaches resolution, whatever that might look like, but I really don't want my final months at the College to be tainted by constant questions about a scandal so wacky it gets the dentists chattering. I can't dodge falling anvils while I'm immobilized in a dental chair, so how about turning up the music and leaving the wacky questions for another day?