"Morality" Ploy

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Pucker

We all have it coming, kid
May 9, 2010
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It occurred to me while perusing this story -- and particularly the introduction -- the "harmless" little arrangements most of make with morality in our lives, often without really noticing. Of course, what happens in this story is "harmless" writ large, but I wonder how many of you have a story like this:

I never sold term papers in college, like Mr. King, but in high school I did write a book report for a friend of mine. This kid -- let's say his name was Ken -- was no great shakes as a student. I was an indifferent student myself, but I excelled in English classes and I was something of a protege to a certain teacher (much like Morris in Finders Keepers). Anyway, Kenny had a report due on this particular day -- on Catch-22, if I remember -- and he hadn't done it. I had taken the Comedy elective the previous semester and knew Heller the way a high school kid would. So I told my friend that not only could I write his paper for him, but I could guarantee him an A.

Needless to say, he liked the sound of that, so I spent third period that day ignoring the droning of Mrs. Murphy in her desperately dry U.S. History block and churned out what was, for me, a cookie-cutter analysis of Yossarian and his buddies. And this is where we get to what was in it for me. I had been assigned this teacher -- McGruff, let's say -- in a blind draw as an incoming freshman and proceeded to dazzle him with my particular brand off b.s. I did so well that when I was allowed to choose my own instructors (where possible) I always took his blocks as a means of making my life easier. I had achieved such a level of consistency with McGruff that I began to wonder if I was simply coasting on name recognition. So I wanted to see what would happen if I were to be graded objectively, blindly, so to speak. You know adolescence. It's a bit arrogant.

So I write the paper and I give it to Ken and I say, "Look! You have to rewrite this in your own handwriting or McGruff is gonna recognize it." It never occurred to me that he graded hundreds of papers a week and probably barely looked at most of them, but that was my worry. Of course, Ken didn't do that. He was lazy. As far as he was concerned, his homework was done. He put his name on my paper and handed it in. When he told me that was what he'd done I thought we would both be in trouble. But nothing happened. McGruff didn't notice the two distinct handwriting samples (or that this deaf mute in his class had just turned in the work of someone who would have had to have been paying attention). The paper got a perfect mark and Kenny had to dance around a couple content questions he couldn't really answer (he hadn't even read it), and I got my validation and everybody won.

Even so, despite the fact that there really was no measurable damage, and even all these years later, I still feel a little squinky about that when I read a story like Morality. It's all just a matter of degree, isn't it, right and wrong?
 

jacobtlong

Well-Known Member
Jun 13, 2008
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Mobile, Alabama
I was in my first year of middle school and at my third new school in three years. While I had always been a diligent student I found myself becoming a bit lost amid the sea of newness yet again. It was frustrating.

My homeroom teacher (who was also my math teacher) got on my case a lot. The homework I wasn't doing at all at home was a big to-do. I'd wait until homeroom to do it, usually. Or lunch if I could squeeze it in there.

But one day she gave us a homework assignment where we had to get something signed by our parents. I put the paper in my backpack and forgot. Completely. The next morning she asked for the paper... and I froze. And I did something really stupid. I forged my dad's name on the paper. Or tried to. I screwed up a letter and it was obvious. It was only after I did that that I thought I should've just given the usual "I forgot to do it" instead of trying to resort to forgery.

When I was asked if I had forged the name on there I said, "No." I mean, it was obvious so why lie and make things worse? But I did it anyway. Just being stubborn and stupid. Not caring what happened one way or the other, really.

Everything came to light at the parent-teacher conference a few days later. My mom was furious. My dad wasn't there because he had to work.

But after being told about everything, my dad actually took us out to eat and he sat directly across from me. That was my dad's Jedi mind trick. He was working that guilt trip. I could not look him in the eye. All that good food on that plate, but I wasn't feeling too hungry.

Of course, it's a relatively harmless offense. Yet to this day I still don't know what I regret more: doing it or not doing it good enough.

Morality, indeed.
 

Pucker

We all have it coming, kid
May 9, 2010
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Of course, it's a relatively harmless offense. Yet to this day I still don't know what I regret more: doing it or not doing it good enough.

That same year in high school I forged a "doctor's note" so I could rejoin the wrestling team after having suffered a broken nose, ostensibly to save my parents the cost of a useless trip to the doctor. In those days, when you visited the doctor he sent you a bill, if you can imagine such a crazy system. I got one of my aunts (ants, where I come from) -- who was a nurse -- to hook me some hospital stationery and I wrote a terse, "I can't be bothered" note that I'm sure, in retrospect, must have looked like exactly what it was, an obvious forgery.

The coach didn't notice, though; or if he did, he didn't care. We had sectionals coming up and that year, we had one of the best teams he'd ever coached.

Tally Ho!
 

Pucker

We all have it coming, kid
May 9, 2010
2,906
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...my handwriting looks a forgery even on a good day.....

I can dig it.

I look at my reading journal sometimes and can't even decipher my own chicken scratchings.

The funny thing about that doctor's note was that it was written in very precise and legible Palmer Method cursive. The signature was little more than an epileptic flourish; I got that part right. But when could you ever read a doctor's handwriting?
 
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GNTLGNT

The idiot is IN
Jun 15, 2007
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I can dig it.

I look at my reading journal sometimes and can't even decipher my own chicken scratchings.

The funny thing about that doctor's note was that it was written in very precise and legible Palmer Method cursive. The signature was little more than an epileptic flourish; I got that part right. But when could you ever read a doctor's handwriting?
...in my profession, I have trained myself to make some coherent words out of the ink marks on their orders....but on occasion, the order gets passed around the nursing office, and we all go "I have no fu*king clue!".....