shark teeth

helping elderly people: one dollar

this red-faced old fuck with a louisiana police ballcap comes in for an open-book open-notes open-laptop essay exam for a history course, the kind of test where you can basically write the essay beforehand and copy it down into a blue book. except he made special arrangements so that, using one of our laptops, he could just attach his pre-written essay to an email and send it to the testing center email address so that we could then forward it, in an official capacity, to the professor.

picture the incredulity on his face when i inform him, with infinite patience, that if he is on our computers, he cannot attach a file that only exists on his computer’s hard drive to an email. because it is not on our computers. i ask him if he emailed it to himself. “yes”

it is not in his campus mail. “maybe it’s in my hotmail, how do i open up the hotmail?” i tell him he types in hotmail.com into a new tab. i show him how to open a new tab. he types “HOTGMAIL.CLOM”

i tell him he typed an extra g and l in there. he clicks between the t and the g and hits backspace.

HOGMAIL.CLOM

i have to excuse myself ostensibly to help other testers so that i don’t burst out laughing right then and there. it’s not in his hotmail. it’s not in his aol. every time he feels he has something significant to say to me or wants my attention, he touches my arm. finally he shows me the binder he brought, with a printed-out copy of the essay inside. i say fuck it, we’ll take it (in so many words), oh but the professor doesn’t want it with holes, well fine, we’ll just scan the damn thing and send you on our way