“I just want everyone to know that I didn’t know the deadline for this assignment was today so I just wrote this really fast before class started,” said Carroll, hoping that his classmates would not see through his paper-thin excuse. “I know what I wrote is bad, so I don’t really need notes about how bad it is, because I already hate it.”

“It’s like he doesn’t realize that every second he drags this out it puts way more pressure on whatever he shares,” said Stacey Dickenson, a classmate of Carrol’s. “Now I’m just as nervous for him to share as he is, because he’s making this a way bigger deal than it needs to be.”

“There’s a part in the middle that just explicitly does not make sense and I am totally aware of that,” said Carroll, staring down at his paper. “So I certainly don’t need notes on that part because I’m going to rewrite it literally the second class ends. I just haven’t had time to yet.”

Before sharing, Carroll repeatedly mentioned that he had misunderstood the assignment and written something totally off-base. Upon reassurance from his professor he proceeded to take a deep breath, act as though he was about to read his work, stop, and explain that he had been sick for a couple of days so his mind wasn’t working at full speed when he wrote the piece.

At press time Carroll had read one sentence of the piece out loud before launching into a prolonged explanation of why the second sentence was about to be even worse than the first.