Dear Dr. Perfect,

I wrote the following email to my college teacher: 

Dear Professor, 

Now that class is over and you have a mountain of grading to do, I wonder if it might be convenient for you to worsen your poor health—could you die, if possible?—to create new extra assignments and then grade them so I might be able to improve my grade? Surely you understand? You don’t have time? But you sleep 5 hours every night. Surely… 

Can you believe the bastard told me no? How can I be expected to excel in such a hostile, woke environment? 

Nicely, 

Me

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Dear Inquisitive Student,

Your professor reserves the right to honor or decline your request. They are, after all, the lead teacher-type person with numerous responsibilities.

Taking attendance, grading papers, and rambling on to a room full of dopes is a heavy burden. Upon graduation, their students will no doubt be the final nail in the coffin of the American workforce—that is, if they’re fortunate enough to gain employment to pay off their crippling student loans in today’s outsourced labor market.

Forgive the pessimistic tone of my unfounded generalizations. Times have changed since I last graced academia. We played pranks on our professors, started rivalries with the nearby community college, and got into severe shenanigans. There were kegs maybe.

Nowadays, professors get canceled for assigning light homework. A professor friend of mine was placed on administrative leave for that very reason after students complained of the trauma inflicted upon them. My peers and I were not nearly as clever with our schemes. We’ve been outmatched.

I majored in communications with a minor in psychology and German tap. I also played trumpet in band, took up painting, and read poetry at one of those basement coffee houses with a really loud espresso machine.

I was a wandering spirit, attending classes by the day, busing dishes at night, and dancing scantily for nursing home residents on weekends. Destined as I was to become an advice columnist, I wanted to explore all avenues. Through it all, my college experience taught me one valuable life lesson.

I can’t remember, but the point is to be patient.

Professors drink copious amounts of bottom-shelf liquors to endure the semester. They conduct Indonesian-style death matches for tenure. They work the glamorous registers at Big Lots to make ends meet. They do all this with the glimmering hope that their students will someday remember something from class upon their release into the wild.

You can’t expect your professor to fold like a cheap suit at the first thinly veiled threat. They get letters like that at the end of every semester. They’ve experienced the badgering, the bribes, and the blackmail more times than they can remember. That doesn’t mean, however, that such tactics won’t work.

You could always play the victim and join the cavalcade of entitlement sweeping the nation. You, your parents, or the taxpayers are paying your tuition, which carries certain student rights. The right to the grade of your choosing isn’t guaranteed, but compromises can be made.

Perhaps that’s the biggest takeaway. All the long hours, endless studying, and dizzying commitment toward a degree is a compromise between us and the real world. It’s a social contract reflecting the years spent toiling in higher education.

College helped me become the perfect man I am today. College can do the same for you if you temper your expectations. All the fun left with the 1980s.

From what I remember.

I blacked out a lot.

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Dr. Perfect has slung advice across the globe for the last two decades due to his dedication to the uplift of the human condition.