I was working full time and taking night classes at a local community college. The class I was in was a trigonometry class and I had an A average.

It had required attendance, but my work (land surveying) occasionally caused me to be late or miss.

My wife was pregnant at the time and we lost our daughter to a cord death in utero. I missed the next couple of classes due to taking care of my family and burying our daughter.

When I came back to class I was informed that I had missed too many classes and had to go see the Dean of Students. I promptly went to see her and she sarcastically “okay, I need to see some of evidence“, not I’m sorry or anything else just a I don’t believe you you so show me something!

I promptly told her to go fucking read the obituaries, there aren’t any other people in our city with my last name.

That was 34 years ago and it still sticks in my craw. I did go back to class and the look I gave the teacher dared her to ask me for anything. I passed with the highest average in the class and subsequently had an meeting with the president of the college and discussed the college’s theft of tuition from working students, because you were given an incomplete for the class because of attendance, even if you had completed all of the course work or you were prevented from completing the course work. When I put it in that perspective, they decided to change their attendance policy.