STRAW MAN
“You know you can’t fail me,” says Laura, who is definitely not getting up to leave. “You can’t fail me because it’s the law.”
“This meeting is over.”
“You can’t fail me because I have a learning disability.”
“You do not have a learning disability.”
“I do. I have trouble paying attention and keeping deadlines and reading and also I don’t make friends.”
“That’s not true.”
“It is true. You can check. It’s documented.”
“What is the name of your learning disability?”
“They don’t have a name for it yet.”
“That’s convenient.”
“You are required by the Americans with Disabilities Act to provide special accommodations to all students with documented learning disabilities.”
“You do not have trouble making friends, Laura.”
“I do. I don’t make any friends.”
“I see you with friends all the time.”
“They are not lasting.”
Samuel has to acknowledge this is true. He is right now trying to come up with something mean to say to her. Some insult that would equal in rhetorical weight her accusation that he has a crush on her. If he hurts Laura’s feelings deep enough, if he insults her hard enough, he would be exonerated. It would prove that he does not have a crush on her if he says something really mean, is his logic.
“What accommodations,” he says, “do you feel entitled to?”
“To pass the class.”
“You think the Americans with Disabilities Act was written to protect cheaters?”
“To rewrite the paper then.”
“What specific learning disability do you have?”
“I told you, they haven’t named it yet.”
“Who’s ‘they’?”
“Scientists.”
“And they don’t know what it is.”
“Nope.”
“And what are its symptoms?”
“Oh, they’re really terrible. Every day is, like, a living hell?”
“Specifically, what are its symptoms?”
“Okay, well, I stop paying attention in most of my classes after like three minutes and I usually don’t follow directions at all and I never take notes and I can’t remember people’s names and sometimes I’ll read all the way to the end of a page and have no idea what I just read. I lose my place while reading all the time and skip like four lines and don’t even know it, and most charts and graphs make absolutely no sense to me, and I’m terrible at puzzles, and sometimes I’ll say one thing even though I totally mean something else. Oh, and my handwriting is really sloppy, and I’ve never been able to spell the word aluminum, and sometimes I tell my roommate that I will definitely clean my side of the room even though I have no intention of ever doing this. I have a hard time judging distance when I’m outside. I totally could not tell you where cardinal north is. I hear people say ‘A bird in hand is worth two in the bush’ and I have no idea what that means. I’ve lost my phone like eight times in the last year. I’ve been in ten car accidents. And whenever I play volleyball the ball sometimes hits me in the face even though I totally do not want it to.”
“Laura,” says Samuel, who senses his moment now, who feels the insult coalescing and bubbling up, “you do not have a learning disability.”
“Yes, I do.”
“No,” he says, and he pauses dramatically, and he’s sure to pronounce these next words slowly and carefully so that they’re fully heard and comprehended: “You’re just not very smart.”
ARGUMENTUM AD BACULUM
(OR, “APPEALS TO THREATS”)
“I can’t believe you said that!” says Laura, who’s now standing with her bag in hand ready to indignantly walk out of his office.
“It’s true,” says Samuel. “You’re not very smart, and you’re not a very good person either.”
“You cannot say that!”
“You don’t have a learning disability.”
“I could get you fired for that!”
“You need to know this. Somebody needs to tell you.”
“You are so rude!”
And now Samuel notices that the other professors have become aware of all the shouting. Down the corridor, doors are opening, heads are popping out. Three students sitting on the floor surrounded by book bags who might have been working on some group project are now staring at him. His shame-aversion instincts kick in and he does not feel at all as brave as he did a moment ago. When he talks now, his voice is about thirty decibels lower and a little mousey.
“I think it’s time for you to go,” he says.
ARGUMENTUM AD CRUMENAM
(OR, “APPEALS TO WEALTH”)
Laura stomps out of his office and into the hallway, then pivots and yells at him: “I pay tuition here! I pay good money! I pay your salary and you can’t treat me like this! My father gives lots of money to this school! Like more than you make in a year! He’s a lawyer and he’s going to sue you! You just took this to a whole nother level! I am going to own you!”
And with that she pivots again and stomps away and turns the corner and disappears.
Samuel closes his door. Sits down. Stares at his potted windowsill plant—a pleasant little gardenia that’s presently looking droopy. He picks up the mister and squirts the plant a few times, the squirting making this slight honking noise like a small duck.
What is he thinking? He’s thinking that he’s likely going to cry now. And Laura Pottsdam will probably indeed get him fired. And there’s still an odor in his office. And he’s wasted his life. And oh how he hates that word nother.