More letters I won't be sending, or why it's important to look alive

Dear turkey vultures circling above campus this morning,
Move on--nothing to see here. Despite rumors of death and decay, our college is still among the living. I'm more concerned about you: what are you doing back in Ohio this early in the season? You ought to be languishing in Florida or perhaps just starting out on your long trip north, but here you are two weeks early circling above campus on a winter day when the temperature is expected to soar to 70. What do you know that we don't know?

Dear sick student,
I get it--you're too sick to come to class, but do you really have to give me the play-by-play? I don't need to know how many times you've vomited this morning or how badly you're suffering from diarrhea (but kudos on spelling it correctly!), and in fact if I never again receive a message reporting in detail about the state of your bowels, I'll be happy. We're all adults here: if you're too sick to come to class, just say so, and if you're so sick that you need to miss a week or more and want to join on Zoom, ask the appropriate office to send me a medical excuse. But please don't email to tell me that you've been vomiting all morning but you'll force yourself to come to class anyway if I think the class is "important." I mean, I think all my classes are important, but that doesn't mean I want a vomiting person in the room. Please: stay home and get well--and if you have to vomit, I really don't want to know.

Dear everyone who voted to put me on Faculty Council two years ago:
As I near the end of my two-year term--probably my final term on Council before I retire--I'm spending a lot of time in meetings dreaming up ways to seek vengeance on anyone who ever voted for me. If I knew who you were, I'd come to your office and stuff piles of student papers under the door or leave my leftover Indian food containers in your office trash can that never gets emptied. I'd like to sentence you to seventeen solid hours of listening to jargon-laced statements from higher-ups adept at weaving words without actually saying anything, people who say "I have adjacency to that issue" and expect the world to nod in agreement. I'll tell you what issue I have adjacency to: the issue of persuading my appreciative colleagues to never, ever, ever vote for me again. If you can manage that, perhaps we'll all be able to find repose in our situation.

But not too much repose. Look alive--the vultures are still circling.