The Dog Did WHAT?!

"The dog ate my homework!" Such an excuse somehow became a cliché in all the schoolyards across America, even though I never heard it or used it in my eighteen years of formal education. Granted, one reason I probably never used it had to do with the fact that I generally did my homework. Another is that I am a bad liar. Anyone I have ever lied to can hear it in my voice and see it in my face. I learned early on in life that lying is bad. For me, "the dog ate my homework," would have always been a lie, because I have never owned a dog. Granted, a dog belonging to a friend or neighbor could have eaten said homework, but such a scenario would have required me to socialize, a scary, scary thought.

Why has this trite excuse become so overused that it has lost originality, ingenuity, and impact by long overuse? By the very act of pretexting, of providing the teacher with the reason of a dog's dietary preferences and gastrointestinal rumblings as the reason for no homework to conceal the real reason that the student did not do the assigned homework, erodes any credibility in a possible, though implausible scenario. Kids as young as four (the age of preschoolers) learn the how of pretexting, without knowing the term pretexting. Yes, their homework probably consists of coloring book pages, but such assignments teach them the importance of doing homework. For my eighteen years of formal education, I did not realize all the excuses I gave to cover my motives (hence by definition, then became hidden motives) consisted of pretexting. Such actions constitute withdrawals from any "emotional bank account" one has with the other party.

What good are eighteen years of formal education if one doesn't learn the definition of pretexting, and how pretexting is the formal way people express the idea of "sketchiness?" I should get my money back from my formal education, especially since it doesn't come cheap nowadays.