Phoning In The Performance

(I’m taking a creative writing class. The professor is a character, but we have trouble making the characters in our writing conform to his very odd ideas of human behavior. In this case, he is complaining about the reaction of a student’s character to her parents’ sudden death.)

Professor: “Come on, guys! What would you do if you found out your parents were dead?”

Student #1: “Umm… probably have a crying fit.”

Student #2: “Yeah, and probably take a long walk.”

(Pretty much everyone in the class responds along the same lines.)

Professor: “NO! You wouldn’t cry; you’d be on the phone! You have arrangements to make!”

Student #1: “Umm… no, I’m pretty sure I’d still cry first.”

(Even though everyone in the class was in agreement, our professor insisted that we were all wrong about our reactions. The crazy part was that his mother HAD actually passed away recently!)