"The processing of tasks has been interrupted," says the error message on my computer screen. I've seen this message more times than I can count, but I've never appreciated just what a versatile excuse it could be:
Do you have our papers graded yet?
The processing of tasks has been interrupted.
Mom! Did my band socks get washed?
The processing of tasks has been interrupted.
What? No blog entry today?
The processing of tasks has been interrupted.
Note how cleverly this excuse avoids assigning blame, refusing to specify the type or urgency of the interruption, which could range from a trip to the ladies' room to a collision with a deer to a cataclysmic event involving weapons of mass distruction and The End of the World as we Know It; as far as the error message is concerned, they're all one.
I think I'll borrow my computer's error message just as I have adopted "Fatal Error" as a category on my research paper rubrics. Plagiarism? Fatal error. Competent paper that might be appropriate for some other class but has no discernible relationship to the actual assignment? Fatal error. Documentation so screwed up that it's impossible to tell where any given piece of information came from? Fatal error. Nobody wants to get a checkmark in the Fatal Error box, perhaps because it's not coincidental that the phrase "Fatal Error" starts with F.
My computer throws so much incomprehensible gobbledygook at me that it's reassuring to know that it can communicate when it really wants to. Of course I wish it would communicate something more helpful like "Your wish is my command," but we have to take our blessings where we can find them, and for today, I'm happy to say that the processing of tasks has been interrupted.
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