Note to all proofreaders: One sometimes must just say no. One such time is when all the begging, money offers, and other wiles are, you are fully aware, not going to incline you to once again drop all your bloody weekend plans at the last minute, without any warning, and fix typos and gunk that you’ve already marked as needing revision three times before. Because if you politely point out that the time constraints are just impossible, then what you’ll get is a promise that the thing will be sent to you Friday afternoon, and not Friday night. And no, …

I was just getting my papers together to send off for my Criminal Record Check and I came across a ton of expired old ID cards. My student/faculty cards from undergrad and grad school (I was issued a student card and then, as a TA, soon after got a faculty card at Concordia); my old S.I.N. card (Social Insurance Number, for you non-Canadians); my Quebec Health Insurance card; and a few more odd cards. Not among them was my long-ago destroyed learner’s license, which even after it expired was useful for ID for a while, and as soon as it …