Posts Tagged ‘truancy’

A fresh, young face in the exciting field of Truancy Enforcement. Don’t be late. Start your career today. But seriously, be on time. It’s one of the requirements. 

Hello everyone, my name is Osgood Stickler, and in case you haven’t guessed by now, I’m a stickler. My father was a stickler and his father was a Stickler. He’d better be. He was born Johann Stickler in Bavaria. Well, in Munich actually. In fact he was born in a second floor back bedroom on 1352 Manheim Strasse in Munich at a latitude of 48° 8′ 13.7544” N and a longitude of 11° 34′ 34.0464” E. See, I really am a stickler. So is it any wonder I’d gravitate toward the not-quite-a-policeman field of a Truancy Enforcement – a profession to which my persnickety nature and exacting expectations are well-suited? Some might argue that if my last name was Vlasic I’d gravitate to a job in the field of cucumbers. But it’s not. So I’m a Stickler, not a pickler. 

Now there’s a vast difference between a stickler and a person who suffers from OCD. I’m the normal one. I don’t nitpick. Oh sure I might enjoy coloring inside the lines more than your average bear, but then again, what do we really know about average bears, let alone how they might color something. It has always been my tenet that if you do your duty and keep your nose clean, you’ll succeed. And it’s not just the nose. It’s other body parts too. But I think it’s important to start with the nose…and maybe include the ears. Basically you should keep clean any uncovered body part another person can see. The hidden parts, not so much – unless they start to smell worse than your average bear, but then again, what do we really know about the smell of average bears?  

My interest in enforcing truancy laws began in the early 80’s when Dr. Stephen Hawking’s less cosmic brother Ralph, published his groundbreaking book A Brief History of Truancy. Alright, it was groundbreaking to me at least. In this special interest book Ralph Hawking deconstructs the salient epochs of truancy and brilliantly relates the enforcement of attendance requirements to the universe as a whole. In this masterly tome, Ralph Hawking traces a general history of absenteeism, enforced attendance and just plain being AWOL. It’s broken down by distinct Truancy eras:

1. Truancy in Later Hominids: 40,000 BC-10,000 BC
2. Truancy Before the Beatles: 10,000 BC-1963
3. The Beatles: 1964-1970
4. Truancy, Truancy, Truancy: Truancy in the time of Marcia Brady: 1971-1974
5. Truancy in the time of Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors: 1975-present

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