Excuses

So, here’s what happened. In November, we had approximately 11 days of school total. Various things were to blame: parent-teacher conferences, sophomore testing, thanksgiving. It was nice for everyone involved, but it was like eating three brats — there were repercussions. After thanksgiving, we had a full week of school. I mean we were there Monday through Friday. As if that weren’t disturbing enough, the homework started coming in, and Eileen talked me into applying to the MFA in Creative Writing Program at UW, the deadline for which was December 15th.

It was a lot of work. In fact, this past Wednesday, I took a day off of school to stay home and grade papers. I woke up at 6:00, went in to school, made copies, hooked up the VCR to the data projector in my room, and then discovered I had left the tape at home. I proceeded to put together the necessary folders of handouts, and tidy up my desk a little when I discovered that I had lost my typed-up sub plans. So, I returned home, printed out the sub plans, grabbed the tape, and went back to school.

By 7:45, I was back home. At 8:30, I got a phone call from a Woman Who Didn’t Identify Herself.

Me: Hello?
WWDIH: Hi, can I speak with Tim?
Me: This is Tim.
WWDIH: Hi, Tim. I was just calling to see if you were going to make it into work today.
Me: What!? I called in a sub.
WWDIH: Oh, I’m sorry. Who’s this?
Me: Tim Storm.
WWDIH: Oh, I’m sorry. I have the wrong number.

WWDIH sounded a little like the absent-minded secretary at school who’s in charge of organizing substitute teachers. She had me a little worried, so I called school. I spoke with the English Department chair and discovered that my sub plans, the video, and the folders of handouts I had just spent an hour putting together were sitting untouched on my desk in the English office. Fantastic.