Taking Attendance

The secretary of our language school, who is also one of the many Moroccan teachers at our center, called me in after work.

"You've been writing a name on the attendance sheets that doesn't exist."

"Really? Whose name is it? And in which class?"

She shuffled the papers around for a while looking for the sheet in question.

"Here it is."

I looked at it. Along the top, my name, level, class period, and date were all correct. Sometimes I use the American [month/day/year] instead of the international [day/month/year] for the date. In this case, though, I had got it right.

My eyes scanned lowered. On the left side, I had written three students' names. They were all in the class, and they had all been gone that day.

I looked over at the right side. There I had written: "TARDY:" followed by another student's name. We weren't required to note the tardies, but I knew that sometimes they called the parents if students regularly waltzed in late, especially the young girls. She was definitely in the class and she had come 15 minutes late, I remembered.

The secretary pointed to the right side. "Tardy. Who is that?"

I read off the student's name. "Yes, she's definitely in the class. She is on the list."

"No, no. The name above it: Tardy. Who is that?"

I looked at her with a blank stare.

Suddenly it dawned on me. I explained to her, "'Tardy' means 'late'. I was writing down the names of the students who came late in case you want to call their parents."

"Oh...no. If you have a problem with late students just come and tell me directly."