Bee-yoo-tee-ful

Okay, it was lunch.

It was lunch, and I was wandering around the net, and my TA came in to get out of the rain. She picked up a pile of papers and started to grade, because I bring her McDonalds and she loves me. And another student came in--I won't use his name, but suffice it to say, he might not know it either. (He's one of the guys who tried to steal someone else's work in the first semester.) He seems to have made an honest effort to improve his work and his behavior, but, well...

"What am I missing?"

"Vocabulary assignment's 4, 5, & 6, I think."

"I did them-- I swear I did them!"

"Well, did you turn them in?" (Believe it or not, this often doesn't happen?)

"Well, I might have turned them in with my packet..."

Now, turning in their vocabulary with their packets is a sin. They all know it. The packet has one destination, the vocabulary quizzes and assignments have another. When they screw that up, the whole system falls apart... and no one knows it better than my T.A.

"You did WHAT?" she roared. "What in the fuck did you do that for? Do you KNOW what I have to do? First I have to find the right quiz, and you assholes NEVER put the right labels on them, and then I have to find the right class period, and THEN I have to find the FUCKING key, and THEN I have to backtrack to find the goddamned assignment in the written gradebook..."

I stared at her--stunned, and the student who shall remain nameless held his papers over his mouth and stared at her-appalled. And she didn't stop there.

"And you know what? All you have to do is pay some fucking attention. Just a little bit of attention--I know where to put the goddamned papers and I'm the TA, I've already PASSED this class, and if you and your dumbass friends would just pull your heads out of your asses and shut the FUCK UP for two and a half seconds at a goddamned time you wouldn't have to come in here during my lunch hour and dick with this!"

The poor student nodded and backed out, "I'll, uhm, look for that later..."

And I just giggled helplessly in my chair. There's some stuff that we're not allowed to say to students--we can't swear at them, we can't tell them to shut the fuck up, we can't tell them to pull their heads out of their asses, and we certainly can't tell them that they deserve to fail for not using their common sense.

But another student? Well... you know... they say shit to each other all the time that they shouldn't, just like teachers do, and they don't get censured for it. And, well, what could I say? They both knew she was talking sense.

The first student left, and my TA was left grumbling to herself, while I tried not to wet my pants.

Yep, folks. It was bee-yoo-tee-ful.