Thursday, November 12, 2009

Best. (Unwanted.) Excuse. Ever.

After all my griping about stupid excuses yesterday, I found myself this morning whining about my inability to form coherent sentences after 2 in the afternoon. "I have the same problem," said a colleague, "but at least you have a good excuse."

I can't count the number of times I've heard this in the past few months. Friends, colleagues, and even students have been eager to let me off the hook for any number of things--can't stay awake for evening meetings, can't remember to send a birthday card (to my brother! on his 50th birthday!), can't get papers graded as quickly as I used to--because cancer treatment has taken over my life.

I appreciate the fact that lots of people are cutting me some slack, but really: I'm tired of having the world's best excuse. I don't like being the person from whom not much can be expected, and I fear that I'll have trouble shaking off that label. Please, may I have my real life back?

Maybe eBay is the answer: "For sale: one all-purpose excuse, slightly used. One size fits all. Comes with bonus sack of sympathy and get-out-of-jail-free card."

I'll have to list the side effects in very small print, though, or no one will ever take that excuse off my hands.

1 comment:

Joy said...

I shall discontinue all sympathy now. You can just go back to be the crazy busy professor with whiny students and mounting pressure to publish while steering an entire program... : )

You should include a year's supply of scarves with the ad. Oh yeah - and even if I did use eBay - I would definitely not be picking up that particular sale item. I have other excuses I'm willing to pull out of the bag.