Wow.

I thought I had done broke-ded my blog.

(Now I'm channeling Cletus).

I guess Blogger had one of its periodic server-fits. (Some people on the Blogger "help board" - which is mostly other users complaining about blogger and swearing they're going to jump ship to Typepad as soon as they can successfully install it - it's actually pretty funny - were asking if it was a DOS attack. Someone else responded that a DOS attack would be pointless, because everyone would just expect Blogger was down).

But it's back up now.

And I'm going to report to you a brief communication with one of my colleagues:

D.: I have to tell you about this.
Me: Okay, what is it now?
D.: You know how I was off-campus Friday? [she is one of the people in charge of the "your changing bodies" thing that the local middle school does every year. She schedules exams on those days and tells her students why she will be off campus].
Me: Yeah.
D.: Well, M. gave my exams for me, right? But when I came in this morning, I had a phone mail message from someone who missed the exam.
Me: Okay, lay it on me.
D.: She calls and says, "I'm having a garage sale right now. If you really need me to come up there, I will, but if I don't hear back from you, I'll assume it's okay to take the test on Monday."
Me:........... (literally speechless)
D.: Yeah, and she was there on Wednesday when I reminded them I would be off campus and out of my office. I'm not looking forward to having someone walking in expecting they can take the exam and me telling them they can't.
Me: I still can't believe it. A freaking GARAGE sale?
D.: Yeah, and what gets me is this is PLANNED. It's not like, your kid wakes up at 2 am vomiting all over the place. It's not like you're in a car wreck. She knew about this weeks in advance and planned it on the day of the exam.
(M. comes in and makes a comment which I forget)
D.: Yeah, I think I'm gonna have to do the "Let's see what Mr. Syllabus says" on this one....

(we have a sort-of running joke about "what does Mr. Syllabus say?" as a potential response to any over-reaching, entitlement-freak requests on the part of the students.)

I mean, seriously? I've allowed students to take make-up exams for jury duty, National Guard duty, funerals whether they were or were not pallbearers, illness (their own, their child's, or an elderly or disabled relative for whom they are a caretaker), even for serious work emergencies (e.g., a break-in at the jewelry store where the guy was a manager). And really, pretty much anything that could be covered by them bringing in a doctor's note, a police report, documentation from their CO, or the newspaper notice of the Important Event. But for a garage sale?

I'm still shaking my head over that.