...when many grandparents are subject to sudden death.
But I got an appetizer in the form of this actual student email. In the words of Dave Barry, I swear I'm not making this up...
"After a recent trip out of town we found out the place we were staying had bed bugs, and the past two weeks we have been in the process of treating our apartment. I was hoping to have my textbook treated in time to turn in all my assignments but that was not the case."
This one's easy. Have them use the reserve copy of the book in the library (not that they need to to begin with, but if they see they have not exhausted all their options then maybe they will leave you alone).
ReplyDeleteMy apologies to Rimi, uh, I mean anonymous.
Before you jump the gun and laugh at this excuse, please know that bedbugs SUCK BALLS as aninfestation. You can't spray them; they are invisible for the first 5 stages of their lives. They bite you all night and can go 14 days without food.
ReplyDeleteTo get rid of them, you have to put everything you own into a high-thermal pod to heat them to death. It is a time-consuming pain in the ass.
But yes, have them use the library or ask a classmate to borrow the book.
"They bite you all night and can go 14 days without food."
ReplyDeleteActually, they can go a *year* without food.
I've had some personal experience with this. Not directly but close enough to know that it's a huge deal and extremely traumatic to a lot of people.
Having your grandparents die sucks too.
ReplyDeleteBugs are why god invented electronic submission. Any bugs, flu, bed, stomach, whatever. Put it in the digital dropbox, I say.
ReplyDelete(1) @ Academic Monkey: Not laughing. I'm just sayin...
ReplyDelete(2) @ Stew Of course bedbugs are tolerant of threats to their habitat...and they've been in the news regionally often lately. Just feeling special that *my* course's text was part of the scourge.
(3) @ Beaker Ben: I started tracking unique reasons for absence or late work early in my adjuncting days. The fiance's cat who needed chemotherapy is the gold standard. This is just my first bedbug event. Dying grandparents late in the term are such a common meme that I worry about them *a lot* beginning in November and April. While I'm not a grandparent, I'm technically old enough to be one, and the phenomenon worries me as the terms wind down. I wonder if there's research money available to study the effects of the academic calender on the grandparents of college students...
Twelve students in one class suffered Suddenly Dead Family Members last week. One had the lovely "I was in a car accident on the way to my grandfather's funeral" double-down.
ReplyDeleteyou know, my grandmother actually did die my senior year. She had a stroke after the first week of January classes, and she died two weeks before my graduation. The only teacher who almost failed me (for the "participation" grade was a gym teacher. The DAY of her funeral was one more absence than I could have. I think I was only allowed 4.)
ReplyDeleteI spent the better part of the semester driving 5 hours one way whenever I could to go see her, and I still kept up with all my classes and assignments. I considered dropping out of school altogether, but since it was my last semester, I stuck it out.
I'll admit it would suck as a prof to constantly be fed excuses. But for my part, that was the worst 5 months of my life.