For centuries, people have wondered how they can become invisible, and float through crowds of people entirely unseen.  Novels and movies about The Invisible Man and “cloaks of invisibility” have fascinated us, sparked the imagination, and sent us down pathways into irresponsibility and darkness.  Oh, what we could do if we were INVISIBLE!  The military implications alone are staggering.  For individuals it is even better.  Every bank is a free ATM.  Imagine the secrets you will hear, the things you will get away with!

Well, I am announcing today that I have discovered the secret formula for making yourself invisible.  Following up on theories already advanced by Douglas Adams (be a SEP: Somebody Else’s Problem–no one will look at you) and Gary Trudeau (Mike becomes invisible to the checkout clerk because he is old, i.e. Not Hot!), I have finally cracked the code.

Just be 60 years old on a college campus.  It is especially powerful on the first day.

Here I am surrounded by literally thousands of 18-twenty-somethings, who simply cannot see me.  As I wander about, they only have eyes for each other.  Those who glance my way merely do so to avoid collisions–sometimes. Those who might realize I am a professor know that I am not only old, but someone else’s professor, or at least not theirs at the moment since my first class has not met yet!

Admittedly, this is not yet 100% effective.  There are a few administrators who call out greetings of excitement on the first day–but these cheerful, exuberant people clearly have no minds anyway, so you will not make a lasting impression on them,  There are one or two colleagues–wonderful rare souls–who see you, and you have a real interaction, but I want to see those people, so I do not mind that it is not effective for them.  The biggest flaw is the trouble student who has no friends and is determined to see you about something or other that is troubling them, to share whatever is in their world, and to share their burden with you.  They have an uncanny knack for seeking out residual auras behind the invisibility, and glomming on like a barnacle to the underside of a ship.  However, to be fair, they also have a special invisibility field all their own–it is hard for them to actually see you because they are warped by the gravitational attraction of their own personalities.

And so, I sit here in my office, doing some reading and writing, and waiting for my first class, which is not till 4 pm.  Walking around campus I am mostly unseen, and only occasionally bumped into by students, but I don’t blame them–it is the invisibility screen.  I hear all kinds of things, being invisible–such who did what last night with someone else and what illegal drugs, activities, and behaviors were involved.  Yes, this is the downside of invisibility–you hear secrets, but then you wish you hadn’t.

Note to the military: This invisibility screen will probably work well for you, IF you can get terrorists and other enemies to invade college campuses.  Admittedly, that may not be easy.  I mean, it’s not the 1960s anymore.  Also, you would have to actually train the sixty-something to be effective soldiers.  And in truth, we are quite effective at this, if our students are to be believed–killing them with reading and writing assignments, boring them to death in classroom.  But I realize this might be too slow a method to actually appeal to the military.  Still, it is worth a big grant for an in-depth study.  Let me know if you want to fund my research into this important and potentially critical development.

Update: The end of the first week of class, and clearly my invisibility shields are still working!  If anything they seemed to have intensified.  I was carrying in a satchel, a box of kleenex, a McDonald’s coke, and a large poster labelled Warning: Radiation.  I was struggling with these, juggling around to hold them all.  I passed through many crowds of students.  No one saw me!  No eye contact, no offers to help carry the junk.

It also dawned on me–when I was a student, I always saw my professors in class and in their offices, but I never saw them actually walking on campus, going from office to class, going for coffee, etc.  Yet they must have done those things!  I was in a very large institution, but still, shouldn’t I have seen the profs at some point?  Clearly, this effect has been going on for a very long time!