I wouldn't dream of insulting the effervescent memories of E. B. White and James Thurber, who taught us all that humble bricks are the rocks of sanity and the only monuments worth saving, but this week I was served a slice of humble pie a la mode with the approximate dimensions of Lake Eerie.

Agreed, every single academic and every single physician ought to swallow the seeds they sow in the lives of us peons.

My ex-husband had a degree in English from Harvard and he thought it bought him the right to decide if his students were actually sick or not.

He said, and I quote: "If you don't have to be brought to class on a stretcher, your absence will NOT be forgiven."

I happened by his classroom one day, and one poor fellow was actually lying on a stretcher in the corner of the room, with a cast on just about every limb in sight and puking like a cat that had just downed a Thanksgiving turkey and purged the evidence on the floor of the bedroom closet.

The only place that kid didn't barf was atop the professor's shoes and that's where it belonged, so you tell me where justice is when you really need it.

Unfortunately, these scenarios do not belong exclusively to the academic community; I went through the same thing in the hospital last week.

Playing God is one thing, but I think if everybody had started barfing at the Last Supper, someone on staff would have had enough brains to change the menu.