No Excuses

Typical conversation at our house:

"Hey, how was work today?"

"Eh, you know-- OK. I got to use my Boba Fett oxygen mask and dive between some cloud banks, and then I dipped my wing tips into the tops of the clouds. Then I did a few barrel rolls. What about you?"

"Well, I paced around a tiny room of bored twenty-somethings bitching about how in America, we punctuate inside the quotation marks."

Boo-yah. I think we all know who the badass is here.

Today my students had a paper due. Actually, calling it a paper is like calling golf a sport-- it was a mere paragraph with a single source citation. Still, I got all kinds of excuses. Per course policy, I had to turn down every one of them, but that didn't stop them coming. And the tragedy! The drama! The variety! Nothing would surprise me at this point.

"My grandma got shivved at the Jiffy Mart last night and I had to fly to Baltimore to pick up some replacement organs for her, but then someone broke into my truck and stole my god-baby, so I had to go sit up all night with her parents, you know, as moral support. Plus, I have diarrhea."

By far, the best response to my "I don't accept incomplete work" speech came from one of my oldest students, a part-time rapper. "Oh, word?" he said. "Shit." Then he smiled, shrugged, and let it go. I've got to admire that. That's called taking responsibility for the consequences of your actions, which was one of my dad's all time favorite Droning Lecture topics.

Update on my dirtbag neighbor, the hit and run bandito (incidentally, also a juicy example of not manning up and facing consequences): the bashed up pick-up disappeared within an hour of the cop finding it. I can only guess the thing's been impounded. Whatever else happens, I hope there's at least one prolonged, awkward encounter where he has to face the girl whose car he totalled, and who he left behind without even checking to see if she was OK.