Page 13 - LIfesOuttakes1
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                        Halloween (In)Justice                                       l            As a faculty member at a university, I sometimes have students ask     me where I live.  I am leery of this, especially at Halloween time.  Years     ago, when I was a new faculty member, I had a colleague that enjoyed     having students hit his house with toilet paper.  He always felt it was a     sign of their affection for him.  I, personally, could do without cleaning up     the mess.  Thus it got so that when students asked me where I lived, I     would tell them if they wanted an address I would give them one.  But the     address I would always give them was his.  I knew this was misleading,     but I didn’t directly say it was mine.            Inevitably, my colleague would come to work the next day and     laugh, “Those little devils hit me again!”  I would just laugh along with     him, especially since I was not the one who had to clean the mess out of     my trees.  He was surprised at the increase in his popularity in those years,     and I was more than happy to let him revel in the joy of his students’ love     for him.            However, he grew older and eventually left us.  At first I was at a     loss as to what to do.  But it wasn’t long until a new faculty member     joined our department.  I nonchalantly asked him where he lived, and then     memorized his address.  Soon his house was getting hit by an exorbitant     amount of certain squeezably soft personal paper products.            But then I made a big mistake.  One Halloween, when the students     asked me where I lived, I put my colleague’s address on the board.  I     moved on with my class and forgot about it.  As my lecture was ending,     before I had a chance to erase the board, he walked in to prepare his class.     With shock, he asked what his address was doing up there.  My students                                        8
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