Profiling?

A funny thing happened on the way back from campus...

I was walking from campus to the bus station when a police officer pulled me aside and said he wanted to talk to me. He explained that there had been an Asian male who had spent an inordinately large amount of time in a bathroom on campus and that I somewhat matched his description. (What?)

So I explained to him that I was a mathematician and that I was going home from a seminar, and he let me go.

I think that I played the 'mathematician' card to get out of trouble rather than the 'not Asian' card out of pure instinct (or perhaps reflex).

I almost never actually try to get into trouble, but I really have developed a strange knack for getting into these types of situations.

P.S. And it gets better. This was Officer Lee (who had some Asian features but wasn't obviously Asian) who stopped me to have a word with me.

I think that this story really has to become part of my legend---especially because it's 100% true.

Sketchy Futon

Fun Fact: The Stanford psychology department has a very sketchy futon in front of its ground-floor bathrooms.

I assume that it gets used for 'experiments'.

"Is that the one in Palo Alto?"

A snippet from an actual conversation:

"Are you a Caltech alum?"

"Yes."

"Is that the one in Palo Alto?"

(I am wearing a Caltech shirt today. The barista at the coffee place was the other person talking.)

Incidentally, my response was "That is Stanford. I wasn't cool enough to get into Stanford." (I love the fact that that comment has 2 nice meanings.)