A Tale of Tenure

by Moshe Sipper

In a realm of science and merit, a professor once received tenure. Whereupon she began to think — an action, I might add, which had garnered her the prized academic station.

“Do I really need all that I possess?” she said out loud, for why should she not speak her mind. After all, she had tenure! “No,” she immediately replied respectfully. “My ears are of no use any more, for I no longer need to listen to colleagues or students.” And so she gave her ears forthwith to a corn.

“My legs? I need not leave my office ever again.” And so she broke a leg — and then the other. “Eyes? Hah, I’ve seen it all. Out with them. Nose? This place stinks anyway. Mouth? Hmm … I still need to give lectures, but I’ll have my grad students deliver those.”

Piece by piece her needs and body were reduced to the bare essentials, until she was left solely with a single digit of her left hand. For one day, there would land on her doorstep an invitation to travel to Sweden to collect a Nobel Prize. And then, reasoned the esteemed scholar, she would need that middle finger.

​Why the hell should she bother herself to travel all the way to Sweden? She had tenure, for fuck’s sake

Copyright © 2016 by Moshe Sipper