Most Call Her a 'Hero'

As Darryl approached Ms. Larsen’s desk, she thought, ‘if I hear one more frivolous excuse for failing to turn in homework, I’m going to crack’. And so it was, after Darryl explained that his homework had blown away into a storm drain, something did crack in Ms. Larsen’s brain. A small module within the language processing region of her brain exploded. It was a storage center for all of the excuses received from students during the twenty-two years she’d taught in the public school system. Disbelief, skepticism, and suspicion had stewed together to fill the module with a seething chemical mixture of falsehood, which suddenly sprayed out upon all the regions of her brain, blanketing both her logic and creative lobes and bridging them in a way that had never happened before. 

Suddenly Ms. Larsen could see all possible excuses laid out before her, past, present, and future. She instantly determined which were true, false, or a mixture of both. From that day forward, she could unerringly confront her students on their deceptions. She was principal within a year, saving her teachers from hours of wasted time in student disputes over missing assignments.  

Once word spread of Ms. Larsen’s B.S. Superpower, teachers from all over the district tried to contact her with requests to assess their student’s excuses. She retired from teaching and opened a call center and website where teachers, judges, lawyers, parents, spouses, and employers from around the world could question the validity of an excuse from an individual or family member. For a small fee, they would receive an answer detailing the truthfulness of the claim within 48 hours.  

The investment, pharmaceutical, and car sales industries were hit the hardest due to Ms. Larsen’s power, but most agreed, that the world changed for the better.