We've all heard that old excuse - the dog ate my homework. Well, just in case you don't own a dog, but need such an excuse, I offer you the following true story told me by my friend and co-author Mark Ramseyer of the Harvard law school:
The inquiry: The course evaluations for Professor Ramseyer's Governance and Finance of Japanese Firms Reading Group last semester appear to have been misplaced. Do any of you remember who collected the evaluations and took them to the BSA?
The answer from the student who collected the evals and was to deliver them to the BSA: I took the evaluations. I was going to take them directly to the BSA office, but then I found out that it had moved, so I ended up taking them home. I planned on taking them to the BSA office the next day, which I learned was moved to Pound. I left them in my backpack, however, and my cat urinated on my backpack (strange I know) and really ruined the papers inside, which, actually only consisted of the evaluations that were completely wet with urine, leaking through the entire envelope. In my judgment, I did not feel that they were sanitary to be handled after that, so I threw them away. Perhaps I should have saved them... but I didn't think anyone would want to handle them after that. I am really sorry about that...
Hmmm.... I wonder how I could get an incontinent cat access to my evaluations?