It’s only week four here at Mid-State U but my students are out-doing themselves with their stories of hardship and woe. A few outstanding entries in the Student Excuse category:

* Student X’s father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and s/he had to travel to hir family’s distant location to deal with medical care issues.

* Student X has family in the South and has to go there to help them evacuate.

* Student X is in the military and has to go to the South to help with the hurricane evacuation.

* Student X was the victim of a crime and has to go to court to deal with it but s/he’s got the crime report to show me to prove that it happened.

You’ll be thinking that I’m terribly callous to characterize any of these scenarios as fictions … but what if I told you that Student X was one individual? Suddenly seems like a perfect storm of bad luck, doesn’t it?

But here’s the real winner:

Student Y has to miss class because hir sister is giving birth … and feels necessary to add that Student Y’s Sister had gone through a traumatic birth last year in which she gave birth to multiple babies but none survived. To prove that Student Y is not making up this terrible story, s/he provides a link to a website about the death of the babies but warns me that it includes graphic pictures.

WTF? Is Student Y really purchasing an excused absence with pictures of hir deceased nieces/nephews? Am I really supposed to have such a prurient curiosity that I would click on the link and scroll around in someone else’s misery?

These students need to chill with the excuses.