NOTE: It is safe to assume that there was no form of cheating in the creation of this article, unless you count us stealing this idea from another member of the staff. In which case, we call that “dibs.” So don’t steal it from us.

MARI: Have you ever cheated in school? And is that wrong?

UTHUS: Of course. How else do you think I got into the UW?

M: Hard work and ethics?

U: No, if success was based on hard work and having a soul, then most of the world’s most powerful people wouldn’t have gotten to where they are.

M: But is that wrong?

U: Oh, you know how I love concrete moral questions. I mean, it’s not like the world is sometimes gray, grayer than a gray whale on a gray day in May. But alliteration aside, cheating is commonplace in today’s academic world. I’m just following the trend. So what are your thoughts on cheating?

M: Cheating cheapens the scholastic soul. It’s like shooting yourself in the kneecaps. Or punching yourself in the face and then shooting yourself in the kneecaps.

U: That’s a pretty depressing analogy. By the sound of things, it seems like you’re not doing so well in class. All the more reason to cheat.

M: At least I’ll graduate with dignity.

U: At least I know I’m graduating. But seriously, you’re a fool not to understand that success isn’t based upon what you do, but on what you steal from other people, and how you convince them it’s your own thing.

M: OK, so how do you define cheating?

U: “Cheating is an act of lying, deception, fraud, trickery, imposture or imposition. Cheating characteristically is employed to create an unfair advantage, usually in one’s own interest, and often at the expense of others.[1]”

M: What’s with the quote marks?

U: Huh? Oh, I took that from Wikipedia. If I wanted to define the word in my own terms, I’d merely say it’s “an act that guarantees fame, fortune and the American Dream, so called.”

M: But shouldn’t success be based on merit, and not on cunning or guile?

U: What is this, Street Fighter? What is this “guile”?

M: Well, “… guile [gahyl] noun insidious cunning in attaining a goal; crafty or artful deception; duplicity. [Origin: 1175–1225; ME < OF < Gmc; akin to wile].”

U: Dictionary.com?

M: Ah, yes. Here are some synonyms: artfulness, artifice, craft, craftiness, cunning, foxiness, slyness, wiliness, etc.

U: Oh. Well, I guess in a utopian society, success would be based on hard work, it’d be sunny every day, and there’d be nothing outside of Pleastantville. But that doesn’t work, so I’m just trying to get by like everyone else.

M: But using that rationale would mean that we’re free to get away with all sorts of crimes, right?

U: Yes. But really, I don’t think it’s wrong, because everyone does it, and I have no moral backbone. I am the snail of morality.

M: That’s just weird.

U: I know, because you wrote it for me.

M: But has cheating become harder?

U: Yes, but that’s part of the fun. Although ever since they banned the use of iPods during tests, it’s been hard not being able to listen to hours of lecture in those 50-minute exam sessions.

M: We’re here to learn, not listen to iPods.

U: I only learn from iPods. As the Blue Scholars said, “F**k class, get your education on the Ave.”

M: Classy.