by Lorraine Ray
***~~~***
Early one morning during the Christmas break, Joseph left his apartment walking to the University to leave his semester grades with the sociology department secretaries. He found them perched on their rolling chairs drinking wine out of Styrofoam cups and listening to Christmas music on a radio. They split Joseph's grade sheets between them, and, placing a ruler over each sheet, laboriously check that the grade written into column two matched a clean mark in the appropriate bubble.
With the last sheet inspected, the secretary let out a grunt of approval.
"All right, Professor Terrel. I hope you and yours have a very merry one," she beamed to the back of his coat as he whisked out the door.
"He's a strange bird," sniggered the secretary into her cup of wine.
"Isn't any 'yours' to him, is there?" said her friend.
"I would be very surprised," the first replied.
"I would be very, very surprised!" her friend exclaimed.
Together they hooted, long and loud.
