Following 3 consecutive unexcused absences from his Thinking Matters section, an offense which his section leader clearly stated would result in a lowered grade, Freshman Moe Muney has requested leniency, citing the unfathomable power of the “Butterfly Effect” as the cause for him missing class.
“I think it goes all the way back to the shortcut I saw someone take across the Oval when I visited Stanford with my family before applying,” explained Muney. “The trampled grass MUST have affected the the wind currents passing over the Oval in some small but significant way, ultimately causing a storm elsewhere in the world. I don’t want to point fingers or mention Hurricane Sandy, but I have my suspicions. That storm itself caused wind anomalies to propagate outwards, and I, caught up like a leaf in a current, was drawn inexorably ever closer to my absence today.”
When his professor interrupted to ask if he was nearing his point, Muney nodded sagely and responded that the will of the gods can scarcely be pierced by the ken of man, and that a tree grows in its own time.
“By the time the force of the storm returned to Stanford from whence it was spawned, it was little more than a stronger-than-usual wind. But it was enough to drive a certain student to change the path they biked along Serra, veering to the left and causing a biker in the opposite direction to bear slightly to the right, clipping the curve and scraping their hand on the concrete sidewalk.
She decided then, reasonably and logically, one might say unavoidably, to forgo her next class and return to her dorm to apply neosporin and a bandaid. But upon finding she had no bandaids, the pull of fate brought her to me, her neighbor, and what could I, the final cog in this mammoth Rube-Goldberg contraption we call the World, impelled by all the weight of a storm a half a world away, driven by the wind itself, what could I do but spend the next three hours watching How I Met Your Mother with my wounded neighbor, the both of us now victims of fickle destiny. And what is my absence when weighed against the many dead and injured in its making?
”
As of press time, the professor described the excuse as “truly ridiculous” and “a farce” and did not intend to overturn his decision to dock Muney’s class participation grade.
