"Am I My Brother's Keeper?"

"And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?" Genesis 4:9

You know you're getting old when you don't wear yoga pants to class. 

I'm sitting outside of the English instructor's temporary office (which he apparently shares with two other professors), waiting for him to arrive for office hours. I have my book, assigned reading for Engl 201A called The Bean Trees (still haven't figured out what the fuck is a "bean tree"), and I am doggedly reading along. 

A pretty, thin girl with long, pretty blonde hair approaches me. "Are you waiting for [the English instructor]?"

I look up, and say, "Yes."

She glances in the window of the doorway, and then remarks, "Is he sometimes late?"

Do I look like I'm head of the English instructor's schedule or perhaps his secretary? "Yes," I repeat. "Sometimes he is late, and sometimes he doesn't show up at all." 

She lets out a dramatic sigh. "I really need to speak to him. I'm really sick, and I won't make it to class today."

"Do you have his cellphone number?" I suggest. Personally, even if I was dying in the Stanford University hospital's ER, I wouldn't call a professor's cellphone number about missing class. But this is the year 2016, and maybe the social rules are different now. 

"Yes..." She mumbles. "I guess I'll just email him." She leaves.