May I please be excused? My brain is full.

Thought you might like to see the Starbucks snark in all its glory.

The reason I bring it up again is that the other day, when I arrived at my office, there was a posse of professors clustered around the door: Professor Birkenstock, Dr Pseudonymous and Sexual Harrassment Colleague, all commenting on this sign on the door. Which by the way, is not on the door alone in all its glory, but somewhat camouflaged in a cluster of papers about creative writing contests, schedules, political cartoons and funny posters about Gower being a wanker.

Anyway, (“Wait, what?” I hear you cry. “Sexual Harrassment Colleague? What is the deal with him? Tell us! It sounds juicy and salacious!” It is, and I will, but not now. Let’s get back to the Starbucks thing.) as I arrive, they all turn to me and ask “Did you or Sarcastic Bastard do this?” I knew it! No one will believe that Starbucks snark could possibly exude from the wide-eyed Poetess.

Later, when I told her about this, she was extremely smug.

In Pineapple-related news, I have been getting a series of emails from Pineapple Boy about why he wasn’t in class, why he isn’t going to be in class, and why his work is going to be late. There are variations in the exact details of the excuses (and I will spare you the dreadful spelling and grammar), but they pretty much all boil down to “my brain is full”. Seriously. And he honestly thinks this is a perfectly okay thing to say, like it is a reasonable explanation, and possibly a common problem.

Brain fullness was also his excuse for missing that in-class assignment a couple of weeks ago. Just the other day, he finally emailed me his “explanation”. Which, of course, makes me wonder about the speed of his thought processes, if it took him 10 days to regurgitate the same excuse. Essentially, it came down to: “I missed the assignment (worth 10%) because my brain was fried from working on the rewrite (worth 1%).” I know he has admitted English is not his strong suit; it looks like Math isn’t really his thing, either.

Meanwhile, he continues to eat and splatter in class. I am starting to be inured to the rudeness of the food, because his other rudeness is so boggling. Yesterday, when I was trying to get some discussion going about a class reading, his analysis was, “This just seems like all the other stupid crap you females come up with.”

There is an upside to this kind of comment, although I know it sounds completely appalling. The rest of the class are such a bunch of vanilla puddings that it is almost impossible to make an impression on them. The other day, when I was asking them about whether they thought war memorials made political statements, they answered “no”. As in “no w haven’t thought about it”, not “no they don’t”, even though I had just showed them a film about Maya Lin and the Vietnam Memorial. So, anyway, puddings. But even unshockable puddings will respond to comments about “crap females come up with.”

I am being all glass half full, because the other option is to stab my eyes out with a spoon.

Pineapple Boy is not my only moron.

The economic crisis is worrying, I know. It’s even worrying to bohemians without investment portfolios. However, I have some good news on that front. Apparently, a guy in my class is sorting it out for us. Unfortunately, it does mean that he can’t make it to class. He did email and let me know, though:

And I’m extremely sorry that I could not come to class today because I had
a very important meeting with the bank today. As we know about the
worldwide stock market crisis. I had to go and give them some special
instructions.
Sorry for any inconvenience I caused you.

Now, it is a concern that he also seems to be confessing that the whole mess may possibly be his fault, but on the other hand, he did apologise. I particularly like that he apologised for the “inconvenience”. I like a guy who thinks big enough to call 700 billion dollars for a bailout and a plummeting stock market an “inconvenience”.

I was talking to Sarcastic Bastard and my other officemate about Pineapple Boy today. Sarcastic Bastard suggested I could have a stern word about the eating in class, and he asked if I had advised Pineapple Boy to drop the class. “I kind of hinted,” I said, “but at this point, I am more interested in keeping him around for the lulz.”

Lest you think I am head and shoulders the meanest person in the office, I offer you the example of our other officemate – the Poetess – who joined us last year as a rather mild-mannered but interesting Creative Writing instructor. We have been assiduously cultivating her into a bitter and twisted harpy. Today she taped a little coffee-cup shaped card from Starbucks on the door. It’s a “we’re hiring” ad, and she had artistically added to the text a note about the deadlines for dropping classes. After I had finished laughing, I said “That is so mean, people will think I did it.” “Score!” she replied.