I thought whaaaat . . . this must be because stupid people are eating the Tide Pods. After all, most of the merchandise in this Kroger grocery store is edible. (Not so much the chicken.) But, no, it was because stupid people were stealing them.

People were stealing so much laundry detergent that my grocery store had to put it behind locked glass doors. To buy some, you ring a bell and an employee comes to unlock the case for you. This is for a $12 item, mind you.

(It’s not clear to me how this procedure prevents theft. Can’t the thief still walk out with the merchandise? Maybe the stupid thieves haven’t figured that out yet.)

There’s a whole movement out there legitimizing shoplifting. Mainstream “influencers” now say shoplifting is OK – in fact, the shopkeepers deserve it because the people have been ripped off by “corporations.” (I guess limited liability companies, limited liability partnerships, general partnerships and sole proprietorships are in the clear.)

You know the ways that corporations – The Man – have ripped people off: By paying their employees what the employee agreed to accept. By charging customers what the customers agreed to pay. By closing no later than closing time and opening no earlier than opening time. By keeping it too cold in the frozen food aisle. All the usual ways that corporate America rips us off.

This we-been-ripped-off-by-The-Man sentiment seems part of a broader trend in America. At one of our storied Ivy League universities, Princeton, they’ve allowed students for the last 133 years to take exams un-proctored. Rather than supervising the exam room, the university let students simply sign a statement saying they hadn’t cheated. Their word was their bond.

No more. Students have deluged the university with reports that, notwithstanding the statements, cheating was epidemic. Students believing we-been-ripped-off-by-The-Man were getting payback from The Man.

The university conducted an anonymous survey. It showed that about 30% of students admitted to cheating. Presumably, some additional percentage cheated but didn’t admit to it.

So, there were the 30% who cheated and lied about it on their statements but told the truth about it in the anonymous survey; there were many others who cheated and lied about it in both their statement and in the anonymous survey; and there was the small minority who didn’t cheat and didn’t lie about it anywhere.

Now that their examination rooms have become a den of cheaters and liars, Princeton is abandoning their 133-year-old policy. They will begin proctoring exams.

Princeton is consistently ranked in the top three universities in the country. One wonders about the integrity of lesser-ranked schools.

Such as Harvard. The grade of “A” is the usual grade at Harvard these days. Some 60% of grades today are A as compared to about 25% just two decades ago.

Harvard’s faculty is finally voting this month on whether to limit in each class the percentage of students receiving an A to 20% plus four students. (The “plus four students” rider is apparently to allow small classes or seminars to still receive all As.)

Grade hyperinflation would seem a victimless wrong, but it’s not. There are at least two victims. One is the student who truly deserves an A. His A is cheapened by the A given to the student who deserved a B. The other is society at large, including employers and graduate schools who are defrauded into thinking they’re getting a Harvard A student when they’re really getting a Harvard B student.

This deception has been widely accepted. Among Harvard students, the proposed change has been met with near-violent resistance by a majority.

But of course. The majority of students are not truly A students but would like to say they are. I’d ask them “Who is John Galt” but most of them would look at me blankly.

I say Harvard students should earn their A the old-fashioned way, like they do at Princeton. Cheat. After graduating, they can steal and eat Tide Pods.

You and me? See you back at the Gulch.