Doxxing My Professor ’Cause I’m Bored

Article and Photo by Tara Mullaney

I’ve sat through an ungodly number of three-hour lectures over the last four years. They’re depressing, cold, excruciating, and the biggest turn-off since Joella’s last runway look. Unfortunately, they’re completely inescapable. The only other alternative I could find was to suffocate myself to death in a bath of Nickelodeon Slime. Yes, that same slime Katy Perry fished out of her nasal cavity in 2010. Fuck Dan Schneider all the way to hell, bro. God.

So alas, there I was, inside yet another nightmare, only tethered to this plane by an email from my last summer job that didn’t pay me enough. They were begging me to come back to work one more season. 

“PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!” they cried. I don’t blame them in the slightest. I was their best worker after all. 

After I pulled my head out of my own ass, I actually decided to listen to the lecture. Well, I tried to listen to the lecture. This professor could’ve been talking about anything and I would’ve been none the wiser. Her words melded together like a dark brown viscous liquid slowly pouring into a large white bowl.

Shit. It’s shit. Why the fuck am I paying for this?

Suddenly, one particular comment blasted out of her mouth, lifting the fog occupying my frontal lobe.

“I worked there with my good friend Stacy Johnson.”

Johnson, eh? That’s the same last name as my good friend Howard. Writing professor extraordinaire. We spent so many invigorating class sessions together last semester, so many unforgettable workshops. I sighed longingly as the pleasant memories came flooding back, “Tara, that is not how you use an apostrophe,” and the classic, “Did proper grammar kill your grandma or something?” 

All in all, probably one of the most humbling experiences of my life. Showing your writing for critique is so vulnerable, so…soul-baring. This retrospection gave me an idea. I decided then and there that he needed a taste of his own medicine.

I will dox the shit out of him. How’s that for feeling vulnerable?

I opened up a new tab right next to the Wikihow Article “How Do I Not Kill Myself?” and got to work spending the last two hours and thirty minutes of class investigating his life like a knock-off Nancy Drew. I’m pretty sure I got called on to present in front of everyone. Introduce myself? Or something? Whatever.

Flashforward a week and I’ve finally done it. Whitepages, Ancestry.com, Google Maps, the New York Times Mini. All the personal information I could find on Howard Johnson is right here at my fingertips. My bestest friend in the whole wide world. My worstest enemy in the whole wide world. 

His time has come.

CRASH.

The noise came from my living room. I look behind me, then back at my computer to find my camera…on. How is that possible? My computer freezes. The screen goes black. So do my lights.

The fuck?

I look up to find a message written in blood on my wall. Don’t tell me I got my period and blacked out again.

I crane my neck to get a better look and…

“Try and Oxford comma your way out of this one, carpet muncher.”

…May God have mercy on us all.