An age old fable retold to us at IIT by a certain WCC bard
There once was a sophomore at Wyoming Catholic who sat depressed in the Frassati lounge attempting to study Euclidean propositions. To amuse herself and attempt to diffuse the small difficulties that Euclid AND at Latin AND at Horsemanship… and you get the idea, she picked up her computer and sent out an all-class email crying out, “I’m dropping out, I’m dropping out, I can’t take this anymore.”
Her classmates came running to her at dinner to encourage her to stay and see if they could do anything to help her through. But when they came to her at dinner they found that she wasn’t leaving. The girl laughed and again cried out, “I’m leaving, I’m dropping out.”
“Don’t cry out ‘drop-out’ girl,” her friends told her, “when you’re not actually leaving.” They went grumbling back to their own studies.
Later the girl cried out again, “I’m leaving Tuesday. Apollonius is too much baloney and I can’t take Magister Severus.” To her sophomoric delight she watched her friends again come to her to encourage her to stay. “All this attention is really quite fun,” she thought, “Much easier than getting attention in class.”
But when they saw that she was doing homework for classes a week in advance they knew she was the one talking the baloney and sternly told her, assisted by a prefect. “Save the dire sayings for when you’re actually leaving,” and from the prefect, “Quiet in Baldwin Please, or else…”. “Don’t cry ‘drop-out’”, they added, “when you’re not really dropping out.”
But the girl, excited to be in a party-spirit of fake depression and loving the attention it was giving her, just grinned and went back to writing her philosophy paper that was due nearly a month later.
Later, the girl missed one too many classes and was on the cusp of being forced to drop out by the Academic Council. Alarmed, she sent out another all school email. “I’m dropping out. I’m really leaving. Friends!!! Help!!”
But her classmates thought she was trying to fool them again, and didn’t do anything her. No good-bye party, no farewells, no one even came to check on her to see if she was telling the truth. They just blocked her email and went back to Google Hangouting their friends.
The next weekend, everyone wondered why the girl hadn’t shown up at the dance. They sent people to her room to find her and she was found weeping and packing up her belongings.
“I really am dropping out!” she cried, “Why didn’t you come to comfort, or at least give me a farewell. I cried out, ‘Drop-out!’ Why didn’t you come?”
Her prefect tried to comfort her as she drove her to the airport to take her home.
“Maybe you can come back next year,” she said, leaning over and looking at the sophomore, “Nobody believes a liar…even when she’s telling the truth!”