At Ladue, students and teachers alike have their “busy days.” During these days, as we all know, work is virtually impossible to achieve, what with sports, club meetings, family events, and distracting technology. Yet, there are ample responsibilities to fulfill: students have homework to complete and teachers have papers to grade. Come the bell at the start of class, if the work is not done, there is only one option: finding an excuse. For a deeper understanding of the reasons why papers don’t get graded in a timely manner, I turned to the teachers.

Top 10 Ladue Teacher Excuses

“I couldn’t get on the Internet.” -Julie Blank

“My eyes hurt.” -Jessica Menkhus

“I had an eye migraine (a blurry, C-shaped splotch in my vision brought on by eyestrain–generally from looking at the computer too much).” -Julie Blank

“My brand new pen ran out of red ink from grading the last assignment.” -Jessica Menkhus

“If there is a Cardinals game on, my grading suffers.” -Mike Hill

“I spilled my coffee all over the pile.” -Jillian Proehl

“If I have a stack of papers to grade, my house gets cleaned to avoid having to grade. My wife loves it when I have research papers to grade.” -Mike Hill

“It is Friday.” -Jessica Menkhus

“I was on a short list to host seven people from Indonesia in my house last night.” -Eric Hahn

“Life.” -Bob Westerholt

Although many of these are anything but viable, having something to say is better than not. To quote Mason Cooley, “Excuses change nothing, but make everyone feel better.”