#AtoZChallenge 2020: K Is for Kangaroo

 

kangaroo: on a multiple choice test, an answer that is so obviously incorrect that no examinee with the sense God promised a monkey would ever select it

I learned about kangaroos in a senior level education course. There were two professors, one who taught testing and measurement and another who taught what I think of as the softer side of counseling. The info about kangaroos came from the T&M prof. He frowned upon them.

After a test covering the softer side, a student informed the SS prof that he’d included several kangaroos. He’d never heard the term. He also didn’t appear concerned.

Concern. Sometime I’ve got it. Sometimes I don’t.

If I were concerned about sincerity, truth, design; about beauty and art; about, to quote the Duke, preserving the unities, I would end, as I began, with kangaroos.

But I have nothing more to say about them. And the videos I’ve examined don’t do a thing for me.

So for kangaroos, substitute kittens.

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“Now,” says the duke, “after to-night we can run in the daytime if we want to. Whenever we see anybody coming we can tie Jim hand and foot with a rope, and lay him in the wigwam and show this handbill and say we captured him up the river, and were too poor to travel on a steamboat, so we got this little raft on credit from our friends and are going down to get the reward. Handcuffs and chains would look still better on Jim, but it wouldn’t go well with the story of us being so poor. Too much like jewelry. Ropes are the correct thing—we must preserve the unities, as we say on the boards.” ~ Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn

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Image by saratarshouby from Pixabay

Christmas Compromise, 2009

Posted on Whiskertips, December 24, 2009, when William and Ernest were still young adults.

christmas-leaning-tree-lights-upright1

If you read my earlier post, our Christmas tree
has been the subject of intense, but not unexpected, conflict.

As soon as the tree lit up, so did William and Ernest.
William had to be physically restrained from chewing on the lights.

The next morning Kathy found the tree lying on its side and the cats out of sight.
The tree spent the day en deshabille, as it were.

christmas-tree-lights-leaning-zoom-out

After lengthy trilateral negotiations, a compromise was reached.

Ornaments and tree skirt are, of course, out of the question.

Gifts will appear Christmas morning immediately before they’re to be opened.

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