There are some sayings that have passed into the canon of the English language as prime examples of absurd exaggeration.
"My dog ate my homework" is one of them - an example of an excuse so far-fetched, so lame, so beneath-and-below-the-call of rationality as to be too comical to consider. It's the absurd extreme against which all other excuses seem rational.
It should come as no surprise; my son used it today. His teacher called me; apparently, he blamed his missing math book on our puppy, Clu, chewing it up.
No actual book as proof, natch. Just the dog. Who ate it.
Someday when they publish my biography, it'll be shelved in the "warnings" section at Borders.
Posted by Mitch at February 18, 2005 08:14 AM | TrackBack
My first grader son brought home some Math homework a couple of weeks ago. Besides the usual papers, there was a bag of red and yellow cardboard chips that he had emptied to use for grouping quantities into sets. He left the room for one minute to see what his brother was watching on TV. In that minute, his sick little baby sister sat down at his desk and vomited on his homework. Cardboard chips and paper. I saw the whole thing.
My wife and I were ecstatic. If the teacher asks where the paper and chips went, he has an excuse and we can back him up. My wife went to the trouble of cleaning the paper and hung it on the refrigerator to dry. It is still there. We have not heard from the teacher. Right now, we are maintaining a strict "don't ask, don't tell" policy with afflicted homework.
Posted by: Dave in Pgh at February 18, 2005 09:59 AMFunny you should post this. Last night at work a customer and I talked about how she had seen her dog doing the same thing to her kid's homework.
I'm not sure if dogs are insane, or just, like, happy drunks or something. I still like 'em better than cats.
Posted by: ccwbass at February 18, 2005 08:16 PMI always had two or three dogs during my rural upbringing, and they never were able to deliver, even after I had properly "baited" the papers. It's sad when an eight year old kid is turning in poorly done homework that is covered in bacon lard
Posted by: Marty at February 19, 2005 04:33 PMMitch-The Kid's got Nodaker blood in him. He just used an excuse that always works in a Jamestown High School. (I'm faking out the national readership into thinking Jamestown may have multiple high schools.)
Posted by: Grotmonster at February 19, 2005 08:00 PMOh,oh I assume you have previously informed your faithful you are from the great state of North Dakota. In the spirit of Reggie Fowler I would like to let them know the you also gave Kevin Costner the idea and ghost wrote the script for Dances With Wolves.
Mitch,
The dog ate my homework is no worse than a lawyer saying "my secretary did it".
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2005_02.php#009619
Nobody believes it, but still the lawyers try it.
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