The Homework Black Hole

My sister Melissa has saved Ethan from me wringing his neck over missing school assignments. Repeatedly.

Last year, when we began experiencing "homework woes," consisting of missing assignments and flimsy excuses, she reminded me that "middle school is not a pretty time for boys and homework." She's been teaching teenagers for quite a while, so she knows.

"You don't know how many times I've sat across from a parent during a conference who explains rather doubtfully that their son is sure I've lost several of his assignments," Melissa laughs.

Ah, the Assignment-Lost-by-Teacher story. I know it well. It's usually preceded by an insistent, "Well I know I turned it in!"

Now that Ethan has come to realize that we don't exactly buy the idea that all of his teachers are disorganized airheads who leave trails of turned-in homework (his) littering the halls as they leave school for the day, he's gotten more vague in his excuses.

"Ethan, how about that Geologic Timeline assignment that was due for Science?"

"Huh? Oh, um, yeah, that should've been turned in..." Inevitably, his "answer" will be mumbled as the kid desperately searches for a diversion. "Hey, does Mira have something in her mouth?" "Fred, do you need to go out, boy?" "I think I hear the phone..."

Besides The Mumble/Divert, Ethan generally uses passive voice when we ask about assignments. For those non-grammary folks, passive voice means saying, "My assignment must've gotten lost," instead of "I must have lost my assignment." Essentially, passive voice suggests the possibility that the assignment just may have been turned in, and then decided on its own to go for a stroll out of the classroom when the teacher wasn't watching, ending up lost as innocently as Little Bo Peep's sheep.

Here's an actual conversation that took place between Randy and Ethan a few days ago:

Randy: "Do you have the assignments you're missing here at home so you can work on them?"

Ethan: "Yeah, they're up in my room."

Randy: "OK, I'm just making sure you've got those at home so you can do them this weekend. You're sure you'll be able to get them done, right?"

Ethan: "Um, yeah, they're up in my room. I think. Well, they should be. Unless they disappeared. Or they could've gotten lost..."

Ethan has also turned the tables on us and tried using one of our own question-avoidance tactics, which is resorting to barely audible jibberish when faced with a difficult question. ("Mom? What does Viagra mean?" "What?! Oh, um, shibber lissy cram doodler... [trail off]")

Given that I invented this tactic, I don't exactly fall for it. (It does make me laugh, though. Just who does this kid think he is?)

I know Ethan does his homework (or at least he appears to). I cannot fathom what takes place when the students are supposed to hand their assignments in, and why his often don't make it to the teacher. Of course, when I've put this very question to Ethan, he is characteristically vague and I am left imagining that there's a secret hand signal each teacher flashes once per hour that directs the other kids to turn in their papers (covertly, of course, so Ethan doesn't notice).

Once he actually claimed that an assignment was "really lost" in his folder. Really lost? What kind of folder are we talking about here? Because I'm pretty much picturing...