When I was at the Ohio State University as a graduate student, I taught a few art classes ranging from basic drawing to a course that dealt with real and recorded time in art forms. I had both bright students, and some dim bulbs. The inconsistency in student quality made it hard to tell if my students were being straight with me, or if I was just involved in a strange performance art project that they schemed up.

A young woman in on of my classes was a good artist, but a mediocre student. She had a tendency toward sporadic attendance and had missed one Friday morning class, returning to school on Monday with apologies for her absence. She began, “I’m sorry I missed class on Friday. I had Anthrax.”

I began to think, “Where would she get Anthrax?,” “When is she going to tell me the punchline?,” and “Is this that 24 hour Anthrax bug that can be remedied with some Nyquil® and good night’s rest?”

She then followed that up with a tale of working her waitressing job that Friday night (obviously a quick recovery) where she was picked up by Jim Jarmusch and whisked away to a strip club, where Jim spent the night sucking on cigarettes and contemptuously exhaling streams of smoke while seething, “Corporate strippers.”

It’s too bad she didn’t try to pass that off as a performance. She may have received a better grade in the class.