Now that I think about it: How DARE she call them “peasants”?
I think you’re right on the money. They have a very lame excuse for everything.
“Well, I promised Ann on her death bed to publish her dissertation, in Indonesian, but I lost the manuscript. Silly me! I didn’t think to look for it in the library, where it was supposed to be, or ask anybody else on the committee for his or her copy. Or ask Barry for his copy, or Maya, to see if there was a copy in Ann’s effects. So 14 years went by before I finally cleaned out my office and found it. Oh, ha, ha.”
Yep. And there it was. She also found a dozen pairs of dirty socks and a peanut-butter sandwhich from 1984.
Dirty old bag, she must have forgotten the correct term is THE MASSES. (As in, We know what's good for the masses.)