Presenting Excuses

(It’s a cold, rainy morning in early November and I’m in class, getting ready to do a group presentation. It’s a few minutes after class has started, and my two groupmates have not arrived. I’m getting nervous about having to do the whole presentation by myself, especially when one of the other girls has the completed paper, when Groupmate #1 walks in.)

Me: *whispering* “Oh, thank god you’re here, but where’s [Groupmate #2]? I’ve got my notes, but she has the finished paper!”

Groupmate #1: *whispers* “Yeah, I don’t think we’ll be going up today.” *raises hand* “Professor, can we please reschedule our presentation? [Groupmate #2] will be really late, if she gets in at all, and she’s the one who has the finished report.”

Professor: “If she’s sick, she should have sent it to one of you so you could still give the presentation.”

Groupmate #1: “Oh, she’s not sick. The fire alarm went off in her building about 20 minutes ago. Last I saw her, she was standing outside in nothing but a towel.”

(True enough, it turned out Groupmate #2 had been taking a shower when someone set off the fire alarm in her dorm building. Because that building was the newest and the biggest, it would take at least another hour for the firefighters to finish their inspection and give the all clear to go back inside. Thankfully, our professor completely understood and let us wait until the next class. Even luckier, Groupmate #2 got nothing more than a cold, despite having to stand soaking wet in the rain, so the report went well.)