The Lampoon: You are able to make fun of people who are able to ask their sources for middle initials and class years.

The Independent: You are able to ask your sources for their class years, but only once a week.

See, comping is silly. I enjoyed the Crimson news comp--I cannot tell a lie--but it aged me. I watched psycho-compers rise and fall; I watched my own stories crump; I stayed up late; I probably messed up the Tommy's run, too.

Happily, The Crimson (and many other organizations) almost never cut compers. There are other organizations on this campus, however, that rarely elect compers.

When I mention this to people who don't go to school here, they readily understand--once they've gained a working definition of "comp."

They nod their heads if I tell them how competitive it can be to join an extracurricular here, because "comp: short for competition" works very well with their image of a hyperambitious Harvard.

Maybe all this exposure to Harvard's comp smorgasbord will put us ahead of everyone else when we enter the real world. We'll impress the powers that be at cocktail parties; we'll brown-nose the comp directors of corporate America; we'll be rising stars. At least that's what we've always been told.

And if we get "cut"? Well, it's bound to happen every now and then. I suppose we'll just suck it up. Until then, fall compers, enjoy your cocktail parties. I'm a little jealous. At the Crimson, all we ever got were pretzels and warm beer.