My house is burning down

I had to proctor the final exam with other TAs because the professor was away. Well into the exam, a student came in and asked for the professor's whereabout. He didn't look very disappointed when he learned that the professor was not in. When he said he wanted to do TA evaluation, I had to stop him and ask him whether he had taken or is planning to take the makeup exam since he was not sitting there writing. He said to me, "My house is burning down." I said, "Oh, did you tell the department and make an arrangement for the makeup?" After learning the arrangement, I tried to close the conversation by saying, "If you want to do the eval, you will have to talk to the department."

"My house is burning down," he said it again with tears welling up in his eyes. Right at the moment, I realized what a cold-hearted bitch I had just become. I rushed to ask him, "Are you alright?" He seemed to be physically OK, but not emotionally.

What'd happened to me? The only reason I can come up with is that I am fed up with excuses. Students have all sorts of excuses when the homework is due or when he/she argues for exam points. My house is burning down? Dude, you just broke the excuse record! That must have come to my mind at the conversation. Why can 't they just be adults and suck it up if they just don't have time for homeworks or exams? These spoiled kids. They want to have fun in college and also good grades. Haven't they learned trade-offs in life?

Just when I thought I understand the psychology of college kids and begin to lose any sympathy for them, this guy with a burned down house reminds me again that "innocent before proven guilty" applies to college kids, too.

(Picture: treehugger.com)