Excuses

Many schools are either out for the summer or approaching the finish line. Our school, unfortunately, is still trudging away, willing ourselves to finish strong. Despite the oft heard question from students, "Do we have to do anything the last week?", the oft given response continues to be, " As a matter of fact, yes." Taxpayers would expect no less I'm sure.

What will not change, however, is the litany of excuses for assignments not completed. After almost 30 years of teaching, some excuses stay the same but others are a sign of the times. Here are a few of my favorites.

1) "My nanny threw my project away when she was cleaning my room."--Say what? The first time I heard this one, I simply had no response. My world does not include hiring full time household help and we defy child labor laws by requiring children to clean their own rooms. Rest assured, the students using this excuse are still required to complete their academic obligations. Maybe some of them recruit a nanny to finish projects for them but such indiscretions are out of my control.

2) "Our printer is out of ink so I couldn't get a hard copy of my paper."--None of that phrase would have made sense when I first started teaching. Printers were real people in the back of newspaper offices. Ink was found in ball point pens and a hard copy was when someone had a difficult time cheating from a classmate's paper. Now, it goes without saying, printers are notorious at sabotaging last minute projects. My advice to all students is, "Don't wait until the last minute. Stuff happens."

3) "I left my binder in my Dad's car and I won't see him until next weekend."--This is a classic now. Whether the excuse is legitimate or not, the truth of the matter is that many, many, many children are shuttled between at least two households. The other kernel of truth is that the students who most often use this excuse have never even thought of bringing a binder home to work on homework. As is the case for most chronic excuse makers, an excuse keeps the wolf away from the door only so long. At some point the house of cards comes tumbling down, regardless of whose car ate the homework.

Finally, the most prevalent excuse used for avoiding work in the classroom:

4) "I don't have a pencil."--I have given away hundreds of pencils in the last ten years of my career. Bringing basic supplies to class seems like an unfair demand for many students. In fact, walking to the free pencil supply container on my desk also seems ridiculously strenuous for a few of my cherubs. I shake my head and give them the free lecture about "showing up at a future job without your uniform for the third time and seeing where that will get you". They shrug and head back to their seats with a big thought bubble coming out their heads saying, "Doesn't she know you don't need a uniform to be a famous you-tuber?"

If I sound like a teacher who is ready for summer break, you are correct. I am ready for an excuse-free couple of months. Unless you count the excuses I will be using for not getting my ginormous to-do list finished. But I promise to keep my pencils sharpened just in case I am ready to check off an item or two.

Dumb

Over the past few months, I have had several opportunities to utter the words, "Well, that was just plain dumb." Life can be buzzing along at a semi-normal pace and then an event occurs that is guaranteed to keep me humble. Here are a few examples.

1) Whack-a-Mirror--I have backed out of my garage no less than a thousand times over the past 20+ years and yet, I managed to wallop the integrity out of my passenger's side rear view mirror one early morning. I confess I was mentally distracted but there is no rational reason for putting a vehicle in reverse and not watching the garage door perimeter. Some part of me believed the mirror would right itself once I scraped my way through the yawning door. The shards scattered on the driveway and the dangling mirror on the side of the vehicle proved otherwise. My long suffering husband dutifully duct-taped the sad remnants to the vehicle so I could maintain a little dignity until the costly trip to the body shop. Paying the final bill added salt to the wound. Rest assured, I am easing my way out of the garage these days.

2) Case of the Missing Scallions--Most Saturdays, I begin my time in the kitchen with a chopping extravaganza so I have fresh vegetables ready to go for the upcoming week. Onions, peppers, garlic and carrots are frequent victims. I pile the vegetables on the counter and begin working through them until the last veggie is diced and tucked into containers. A couple of weeks ago I purchased a bunch of scallions to add to the mix. That evening I reached into the fridge for my chopped scallions and despite my best efforts, I was unable to find any evidence of their existence. I distinctly remembered the bag on my counter top but my memory was a little hazy as to the chopping experience. I finally decided I had accidentally tossed them out with the cutting scraps. Fast forward one week. I reached into a cupboard for a box of angel hair pasta and there, nestled in with the dry goods, was a bag of scallions. Needless to say, they were a little squishy and aromatic. Also needless to say, dumb.

3) Crispy crisp--I have been making rhubarb desserts for as long as I have known the joy of applying sugar to rhubarb. I decided to make a strawberry rhubarb crisp for guests last week because it is a no-brainer, go-to favorite. I sailed through the assembly of ingredients and put it in the oven for its usual thirty minutes. I heard the timer ding but was in the middle of some laundry issues. Surely, I would remember to check the dessert within a couple of minutes. More than a few minutes later, I hesitantly opened the oven door. The crisp had taken on a toasty glow, and not in a good way. I pulled it from the oven and willed myself into believing it would be just fine. I had no time to make another dessert so the crispy edges were removed from the pan and ice cream was plopped on each dessert as a tasty cover up.  My husband thought it tasted great but he is also well aware of who makes his next meal.

I am smart enough to know I am not finished being dumb. I only hope I can keep the vegetables in the fridge and the rhubarb leaves out of the desserts.