Perception

How the world thinks faculty members spend their semester break.

How faculty members ACTUALLY spend their semester break (working on promotion and tenure materials, reading feedback from "Reviewer 2" on manuscript and conference submissions, etc.).

Oops.

The student realized - a bit too late - that this indeed was NOT rocket science.

Timing

That moment you have to high five your friend because you both waited most of the semester to do your laundry, you got to the laundry room at the same time, and there were enough machines for all of both of your loads.

FYI

Just so you know, "I had an ice cream headache" does not always count as a legitimate reason for a class absence.