Okay, I don't think anyone's read this post, but if you have read 'The Improbable-ness of statistics' then you might remember me saying that people don't always take into account the very very crazily rare events. This has a knock on effect as I found out, because when such a unbelievable event does happen (no, none of my coins spontaneous disappeared into a black hole), it takes a lot more convincing.
Everyone has probably heard/used 'My dog ate my homework', right? It's pretty much the most cliched of implausible excuses for not doing homework but I suppose it is still possible. And since that old classic was first used by some desperate student, lots of spin offs have been created by even more desperate students. For instance 'My budgie ate it', 'My cat ate it', 'My friend ate it'.
Now, I can fully understand why people have to use excuses for homework, (I've had to use them every now and then when my time-turner has broken....) but it does mean that teachers are less understanding when you tell them that your friend really did eat your reply slip.
I should explain a bit more quickly. My friend was messing about and we were talking about eating paper (maybe we were discussing rabbits or something?!) so to prove a point my friend, with no regard for hygeine/littering, snatched the first piece of paper she saw into her mouth without looking. I could hardly give in a chewed, slightly soggy reply slip, now could I?!
But, for reasons unknown, when I asked my teacher for another one, explaining what had happened, she didn't believe me. Oh the injustices of the educational system :(
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