Sew Clee-shayed

So as part of my job as a tutor for BYU- I, I get to do online tutoring. Basically what happens is college students from all over the country e-mail us weekly grammar exercises and essays, and we correct/critique them and send them back. It's pretty much the best job on campus, if not the world. In one semester I've been blessed to read an essay about child leashes (which had one paragraph dedicated to a hypothetical situation in which an adult, talking to another adult, forgets that what's on the end of the leash in their hands is an actual child, tugs on the leash to shut them up, and pulls the child to the ground, giving them a concussion), another essay about how we should all go back to the days of Mid-wifery (which was another tutor's student), and a grammar worksheet which hailed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches as the most important invention of the 21st century (and you better believe this child was serious about it). One of my favorite assignments, though, was this one, where the student had to watch an hour of TV, or listen to an hour of radio, pick out all the cliches they heard, and modernize them to make them 'un-cliched.' So here it is, with a few notes (that I didn't send to this student)....

· Bad guys will always get killed by a snake, while the hero simply reaches out and picks it up with his bare hands. (VALID)

· Aliens usually speak English and have same colloquialisms. i.e. planet. (I DIDN'T KNOW 'PLANET' WAS A COLLOQUIALISM.)

- At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil (CASE IN POINT: TWINS- STARRING DANNY DEVITO ND ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER.)

- Movie people can get cabs instantly, unless they are in danger, whereupon no cab can be found.

·People typing away on a computer will turn it off without saving the data. (VALID, EXCEPT I FEEL THEY'RE FORGETTING THE LANDMARK CASE OF PETER GIBBONS V. INITECH, IN THE MOVIE OFFICE SPACE, IN WHICH HE WAS FORCED TO WORK ON SATURDAY BECAUSE OF A LENGTHY DOCUMENT-SAVING PROCESS)

·If hero or villain takes an elevator, villain or hero can beat it by taking the stairs, even if the trip is 20 floors.

·Pastries are always in pink boxes (OR WHITE)

- Any lock can be picked with a credit card or paper clip (I WOULD ACCEPT THIS ONE, WERE THEY NOT FORGETTING THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THIS CLICHE- THE BOBBY PIN)

·Police Captain/lieutenants are always angry at their star detective and yell at him, threatening suspension if he doesn't drop the case. (THIS ONE, I LIKE)

·Explosions in space make noise. (NOW I'M BEGINNING TO WONDER WHAT HOUR OF TV THIS KID WAS WATCHING THAT HAD PASTRIES, A POLICE DETECTIVE, AN EXPLOSION IN SPACE, AND AN EVIL TWIN)

·Whenever anyone is chased into a staircase, she/he will run upstairs rather than down. (HOW ELSE ARE YOU GOING TO GET TO THE ROOFTOP FOR THE 'EDGE OF THE ROOFTOP' CONFRONTATION...GEEZ.)

Anyways, I thought it was amusing. Kudos to you, fellow movie analyst. Ku-DOS