Yesterday had the pleasant quality of being filled by chance encounters with friends, often multiple friends simultaneously. Accordingly, I went to the library to do some Latin translation, and ran into a certain gentleman particularly amenable to haberdashers (no, not Ian, the other one.) We were soon joined by Dan “will you still love me if I become a Marx scholar?” W., and then by a certain other Dan who will kill me if I give him an epithet.

As all four of us are history majors, conversation soon turned to our thesis preceptors. From preceptors it went to seminars, from seminars to political scientists, from political scientists to the historiography of political history, from historiography to particle physics… you get the idea. Somewhere in there, Dan complained that someone in his seminar had repeatedly accused him of writing a Political Science BA, as opposed to one for History.

Now, since Dan just *happens* to be simultaneously writing a Poli Sci MA thesis, you would think he would know the difference. Hence, the following conversation:

Dan: I simply informed them that my paper lacks all of the essential qualities of a Political Science paper.
Dan W: Like being wrong.