This means war...

Well, it looks like the rumors of Joe Torre’s demise were just that – rumors. Supposedly his job is still safe, which I’m quite happy to hear. It really wouldn’t make sense to blame Joe Torre for the Yankees’ abysmal pitching situation. He just tells people to pitch… he doesn’t actually go out there and throw the baseball himself. Although with the way our pitching was this year, he probably COULD have done that, with similar results. Skippy the ball boy could’ve pitched a few innings and he would’ve looked just as good as Jaret Wright. (Seriously, has anyone ever let Skippy pitch? I mean, maybe the kid is good, who knows… he certainly has a flair for tossing foul balls into the stands…) Anyway, I will continue to proudly wear my Yankee cap, whether or not we made it past the playoffs this year. As soon as we get Skippy on the mound, we’ll be unstoppable…

So tonight is the final exam in the class Rick has been taking the last few weeks – the exciting world of Managing Human Resources. I know it’s an exciting world, because I proofread most of Rick’s assignments before he turned them in. And I fell asleep about halfway through all of them. What a riveting subject. But, to Rick’s credit, he has a straight A average in this mesmerizing class, and as he likes to point out, “I could skip the final altogether and still get a C.” Aim high, Rick… aim high.

This reminds me of another fascinating class Rick took, years ago when we’d only been married a few months. I can’t remember what it was, exactly – some sort of history class, maybe? But I do remember that the students were required to write a term paper in two or three parts, where a section was turned in one week, and then the same section, plus whatever was added on to it, turned in at a later date. There was a long list of subjects to choose from, and Rick chose one that interested him, I guess – the history of naval warfare. Certainly wouldn’t have been MY first choice… wouldn’t have even been my LAST choice. But it was Rick’s paper, not mine, so he could write about whatever he wanted…

And the whole thing began innocently enough – Rick was working a night job at the time, so his schedule was very screwed up and sporadic. Since I was taking classes as well, and I wasn’t working, he wondered if I could just stop by the library after my classes and check out some books for him. Just a few “naval warfare” books. Okay. No problem. I returned home with a pile of stoic, stodgy old history books about boats and wars. Blah. Thank goodness this wasn’t MY paper. How boring. And then, just as innocently, Rick wondered if I could possibly just jot down a few notes from those dusty old books (that had certainly never been checked out before, because who would want to actually READ them?), because he was exhausted from work and classes. Well, hmmm… okay. Just a few notes. I wrote down a few pages of ideas and facts that seemed pertinent to a study of naval warfare, and handed the whole thing over to Rick so he could do whatever he wanted with them.

And what he wanted, it turned out, was for ME to just go ahead and write the whole stupid paper. I’m not sure how that happened, exactly – I do think I may have been lured in with the promise of dinner at a nice restaurant. (This, of course, was an extremely big deal when we first got married, since we had about five cents in the bank…) And not only did I write the first part, but I wrote each subsequent part as well. Rick could not have chosen a more boring subject for “his” paper – I mean, do I seem like the kind of person who’d be utterly fascinated with the history of naval warfare?? And yet there I was, writing paragraphs about canons on wooden ships and evasive maneuvers on the high seas. The best part (or possibly the worst, I’m not sure…)? I got an A on that paper. Or, rather, “Rick” got an A on that paper. I wrote a term paper on a mind-numbingly dull subject that interested me about as much as the dust bunnies under my refrigerator… and I got an A.

I. Am. Awesome.

And let me make it clear that I do NOT condone cheating. Like I said, I’m not exactly sure how I was coerced into writing that paper – probably just because I realized I had more time on my hands and Rick was completely stressed out. I’m really nice that way. Not that I’d be that nice anymore, of course. I mean, if I’m going to earn an A on a paper, I want to make sure I actually get credit for it.

But if anyone has any questions about the captivating world of naval warfare, feel free to ask…