ivman's blague

One of the TV shows I grew up with was Father Knows Best. You may be old enough to remember that series or maybe you've seen reruns. In those days, dads were allowed to be portrayed as something other than idiots, and Robert Young usually gave wise advice. But as we look forward to Mother's Day this weekend, I want to focus on moms who know what's going on and who give out great advice with such finesse that it inflicts almost no pain.

Throughout history, mothers have been known for handing out wisdom, advice, and correction to their children. You could almost hear the moms of these famous individuals say the following:

Paul Revere's mother:
"I don't care where you think you have to go, young man. Midnight is past your curfew!"

Mary, Mary, quite contrary's mother:
"I don't mind you having a garden, Mary, but does it have to be growing under your bed?"

Mona Lisa's mother:
"After all that money your father and I spent on braces, Mona, that's the biggest smile you can give us?"

Humpty Dumpty's mother:
"Humpty, if I've told you once, I've told you a hundred times not to sit on that wall. But would you listen to me? Noooo!"
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The last post dealt with students' excuses for the way things are. Today's will focus on the parents of those young scholars. My first eleven years of teaching were on the high school level where meeting the parents of my students was often quite interesting. It left me thinking one of two things — either "Is that child really from that family?!" or "Well, that explains a lot!" As one of my college teachers used to say, "The apple doesn't fall far from the horse, does it?"

The following are reputed to be real notes written by parents. I have left (mis)spellings and grammatical problems intact. Some of them are funny, but some are just sad.

My son is under a doctor's care and should not take P.E. today. Please execute him.

Please excuse Lisa for being absent. She was sick and I had her shot.

Please excuse Jimmy for being. It was his father's fault.

Dear School: Please ekscuse John being absent on Jan. 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, and also 33.
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In honor of exam week here at BJU beginning this Saturday, following close on the heels of students' course evaluations, I'm posting about a technique that has long been practiced by students — "alibi-ology" — the science of giving alibis. Students come up with some of the most amazing alibis to explain their performance. Some of the things below might also occur on students' course evaluations. You teachers out there may recognize some of these.

What students say when exams roll around...

When they are given an objective test:
"It doesn't let you express yourself."

When they are given an essay test:
"It's so vague. You don't know what's expected."

When they are given many minor tests:
"Why not have a few big ones? This keeps you on edge all the time."

When they are given only a few major tests:
"Too much depends on each one."
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I don't know what it is about funny signs that I find so amusing. Maybe it's just the highly public nature of a sign that makes a strange or confusing wording or an absurd picture all the more humorous. I'm sure that some signs are intentionally funny, just to grab attention and brighten someone else's day. But the thought that a sign is absurd without intentionality amuses me to no end. I've recently been sent or been pointed to some signs that had me laughing out loud (lol). If they amuse you as much as they did me, you might want to be sure you are reading this in a place where you are free to lol.

Here's a building that used to be located somewhere in Saint Louis. I understand it has since been torn down. Was there a butcher's shop down that side street?

Here are several signs that might make you think twice about parking near them.
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Are you thinking about spring cleaning? We did some cleaning and organizing earlier this year, before my yard and gardening chores became my huge time consumer. One of my goals was to make use of some space for storage in our garage that was not being used to good advantage. We have a lot of storage space in our attic, but getting stuff up and down the narrow ladder can be a pain. By being able to store more in our little garage, I will be able to reduce greatly my forays into our attic to get this, that, or the other item(s) that we need. There are lots of great space saving ideas out there for using space that would otherwise go to waste — like the drawers built under the stairs in the picture above. But in this post I'd like to focus on wall space for storage.

One area of our garage that we had been using for some storage is a little alcove that is three and a half feet wide and seven feet long. There were three flimsy shelves there when we moved in. We had things sitting on those shelves as well as on the floor under them, but most of the space was wasted. It's such a narrow space that we cannot store big items there easily. I thought it would be the perfect place to have new shelving to maximize the storage. When I weighed the time and expense of building wooden shelving for our garage, I thought it would be better stewardship to buy some shelves that were on sale at Lowe's. Two sets of the shelves fit there perfectly, and here's a picture of that area now with an unbelievable amount of stuff stowed away.

We have a fairly narrow one-car garage, but there are still several other places where I can use other sets of shelving to give us more storage. Here's a picture of one area I redid after we liked the updated alcove so much.
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