Yes, Children, Sometimes When Grown-Ups Love Each Other They ...

Scott is subbing for The Little Womedievalist while she (successfully) completes her orals.  He has been instructed to tell them to print out and complete two peer-review forms over the weekend.  They ask him many questions, all the while neglecting to mention that they all have two extra copies of their papers.

Student #1: So we just have to, uh, print the forms out?

Scott: I believe so, since you don't have two extra copies of your peers' papers.

The class begins to whisper.  They shoot each other furtive glances.  One brave soul speaks up.

Student #2: Mr. Professor, um, we, uh, [The Little Womedievalist] told us to print out, uh, two extra copies of our papers for peer-review.

Scott: So you all have two extra copies for peer-review and you didn't tell me?

Student #1: I mean, but you didn't say, um, that we had to, uh, exchange them so we were, um, confused?

Scott: Confused?  You weren't confused.  You thought you could get out of some work.

Student #3: But you, um, you didn't, uh, you didn't tell us, um—

Scott: You were trying to get me in trouble with my wife.

The class erupts into laughter.  Scott sits, confused.

Scott: People do get married you know?  [The Little Womedievalist] didn't tell you I was her husband? 

The laughter continues, and now many of the students are speaking at once.

Student #4: (still laughing)  She's too young to be married—

Student #5: (still laughing)  She doesn't seem married—

Student #3: (still laughing)  She never mentioned she was—

Student #1: (still laughing)  She's married to you?

Scott: I'm sitting right here you know?

And he was.  He was sitting there being reminded (yet again) that his lovely wife is out of his league.  But that doesn't bother him.  Nor does the fact that many of her male students seem to find her attractive.  (He does too.)  He was sitting there being bothered by the fact that he had absolutely no idea what was so funny.  He was thinking that it must've been an eruption of nervous energy that set the class tittering, even though that doesn't quite account for what sustained the laughter for so long.  What do I mean?  Five minutes later:

Scott: If no one wants to volunteer, I suppose I'll have to volunteer someone.  So—you in the pink.  Could you read that paragraph for us?

Student #7: (still laughing)  It says (swallows a chuckle), it says (and another), it says, um ...

Comments

[Stephen]

Congrats to the Little Womedievalist for finishing her orals!

[Sisyphus]

Is she done? Finished? Passed? All good? Hooray!

My friend filed his MA thesis and we're celebrating later tonight, so I will be sure to raise a glass for her too!

(And most of the things I say that people laugh at I have no clue _why_ ---- I just chalk it up to them not understanding my brilliance. It's a surrealist sort of brilliance, I'll admit. But still.)

[Ahistoricality]

"I was discovering something marriage does: it defines you, in part, as the sort of person who'd marry whoever your spouse was." -- Alice Mattison, The Wedding of the Two-Headed Woman (2004)

[Adam Roberts]

"...being reminded (yet again) that his lovely wife is out of his league."

Well, since I look like an albino cod with a hairdo, and since my wife is small, and perfectly formed, and very pretty, I can only identify strongly with this. But as you once reminded me, Scott, it's the wyrd of men to marry women they can't ever truly hope to live up to. To whom, I mean to say, they cannot hope ever to live up. Up to the living of whom, rather, they cannot ever hope.

You take my point.

In a nutshell: beautiful men are far and few between, and most of them are narcissistic arseholes. Beautiful women proliferate, however. Hence the Randy Newman song about how often lovely female marry froggish men. Or the Robert Graves poem.

Also: congrats to The Little Womedievalist.

[alice kaufman]

Perhaps as a gift for her finishing, you should get her a new very,very fat wedding band so that her male students, who must be blind to her ring, can see she is married. A big congrats to her!!
We are proud of her because she really worked her tiny butt off to get this done while you slowly worked on yours(I really know you worked hard and long on yours, but she has finished a phase).

[human]

So you're saying that you aren't hot?

Well, your blog is hot, at least.

At least, I think so!

[SEK]

My blog is scorching ... but, alas! it is but unsubtle compensation.

[Jason]

A couple of weeks ago I walked into an Honors class, which had apparently been gossiping about my wife & me. (She also teaches in our Honors program, though, obviously, we never team-teach.)

Anyway, this had all been going on innocently for a few minutes, until, right as I walked in, a student remarked, quite loudly, "No, it's not possible that he's married."

I've long since reconciled to having a wife out of my league, but to be condemned as unmarryable seemed a low blow.