Splainin'

Recently I made some hateful comments about how I didn't want any more stupid people to be born because the world seems to have an ample supply. Many of you thought this was heartless for me to say and some of you thought, I am sure, that since I am stupid myself, I injured the cause of my own kind by suggesting there should be fewer of us. Whatever.

Let me splain why I had that little tantrum about stupidity.

I have a student - not the first in my career - who spells his name four different ways, depending on his mood. He also writes his papers in text language, but that is another complaint entirely. So that I don't sound like I am singling out any ethnic or social group by way of splainin', I will use the name of a famous person who is most assuredly not attending college to make my point. To prove I am not even ganging up on men-folk, I will choose a woman's name.

The name shall be: Angelina Jolie.

Now, if you have an "Angelina Jolie" in your class, like I do, you expect that your Angelina Jolie will have nickname. Good. Let's say it is "Angie." Excellent! Let's rule in the possibility that Angelina, sometimes known as "Angie," will sometimes type "Angie Jolie" in the heading of her papers because she would assume I would know, based on the last name and my knowledge of her casual moniker, to whom the paper belonged. To whom the paper belonged!

Not so!

During the semester, I collected six formal papers from Angelina. On the first paper, she spelled her name:

Angelina F. Jolie. (Cool! She has a middle name!)

On second paper, she spelled her name:

Angie Farina J. (Huh. I wonder if this is Ms. Jolie?)

On her third paper, she spelled her name:

Angelina Farina Jolio (Oh shit. I wonder if this is the same person as Angie Farina J?)

On her fourth paper, she spelled her name:

Angelina Q. Jolio-Farina. (What the FUCK?)

Fifth paper?

Angie Jolie (Wow. It's almost clear to me who this is.)

Sixth paper:

Angelinina J. (Who the fuck is this?)


So when I returned her portfolio the other day, I asked, "What is your name, seriously?"

She replied, "Yo, miss, it's Ange."

"Really? No Angie? No second syllable?"

"Whatever, it's Ange."

"Ok. Look at all the ways you spelled your name this semester. Why did you do that?" I was a bit snappish.

"I was just keepin' things fresh."

"Really?" said I.

"I got to go," replied Angelina, Ange, Angie, and Farina Q Jolininio.

WHATEVER.

And then I had a breakdown and I begged Jesus to just make it stop.


And that's all the splainin' this "miss" is gonna do.

Happy Thursday.