Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash
By Caribbean Comedian Onicia Muller
Expecting an extension, I lied about my French homework being on a thumb drive. Instead, my teacher said she’d wait while I printed it. Why are teachers so annoying? Just play along with the lie, gosh man.
Sucks that kids can’t lie about homework being on a USB, in their email, or the printer being out of ink. Them was foolproof tales of yore.
Teachers can’t expect us to recite a book report on the spot. However, a printer and internet browser will blow up your entire spot in five seconds — five minutes with a dial-up connection.
Satan’s Simple Plan®: Go to MSN.com. Pick an article. Go to MSN.fr. Find the French version by scrolling until I saw the same photo. Print both articles. Read the English version while walking to class. Skim the French version in class. Pass my French oral exam.
TIL: Simple plans come in two-step systems. Not three. And for sure not eight steps with two janky fail-safes.
If my French were any good, I would have skipped step one, go straight to three; do two, skip four, modify five, laugh at six, do seven, and cha-cha after eight.
But even that is five steps. And with hips stiff like plywood, the only place I should be cha-cha-ing to is the chiropractor.
“Don’t worry OnisSsia, if you can’t wrangle a responsSs in French, just esSsplain that you’re nervousSs and resSsite a recap in English.”
Was speaking English the way to pass a French oral exam? No, the Devil’s plans seem smart but always have more holes than a lace front wig.
The MSN websites were not identical. Luckily, Lucifer had a new lie ready. “SsSay that there were sSsome students ahead of you.”
“I can’t just say ‘some students are ahead’ of me. Good lies are specific — and stop suggesting ‘sSsix’ because that’s too many.” You think Satan would be more successful if humans were less stupid?
Dial-up internet was so slow it was probably quicker to pay a Haitian student a week’s worth of Busta sodas to write a fake article on the fly.
Simple Plan® take two. Search Britney Jean Spears because she’s a newsmaker with worldwide fame, find identical articles on both sites, aaand watch the original and follow-up lie fall apart. “PsSst, OnisSsia. SsSay sSsix sSstudents — SsSheesh. Okay! SsSay you went to pee.”
Simple Plan® take three. Find an English article about Britney Spears. Dump it into FreeTranslation.com. Then (because we needed to cite our sources) doctor a Word document to include the MSN.fr logo. Rename the source URL to www.MSN.fr/entertainment/Britney-Spares-Étonnant-Nouvelles.fr. (Gotta plug ‘.fr’ twice so she knows it’s real.) Boom. Pass my exam.
My teacher barely looked at my article before declaring, “This is not French.”
“Really? I found it on MSN France’s website. Look, there’s the logo, ‘.fr’ URL and everything.”
Shout out to all the (imaginary) dogs who be eating homework. Y’all are the apocalypse-proof cockroaches of student excuses.
Photo by Elizabeth McQuern
Award-winning Caribbean comedian, Onicia Muller regrets leaving St. Maarten for windy Chicago. Her weekly humour column, Just Being Funny is chicken soup for the naive sceptic’s soul. Join her newsletter for funny stories and stand-up comedy. OniciaMuller.com/JBF
