In Which Mike Goes Insane For No Reason

So about a week ago I had to turn in a short paper for Property class.  This is unusual in law school.  Every other class I have has only one grade: the final exam.  My Property teacher wanted to make things more interesting for us by giving us a few projects throughout the semester that are worth small portions of our grade.  The first project was a paper about a movie about a dispute about a baseball.  A baseball worth a million dollars.  Because it was, like, the 73rd one hit by Barry Bonds in 2001.  Or something like that.

If you know me, my reaction to this movie will be entirely unsurprising.  An excerpt:

"This brings to mind a question: why is it not illegal to lob a small, hard object worth a small fortune into a tightly packed crowd of slightly inebriated strangers with the directive that whosoever shall arise from the resulting scuffle wielding said small and hard object in their fist shall be the rightful owner?"

I analyzed the movie from the point of view of the various rules of property ownership that could have applied.  I was, of course, having a wonderful and sarcastic time of it.  Another excerpt:

"As the Athenian delegation in the 400’s BC told the inhabitants of Melos 

shortly before destroying them, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer 

what they must.” 1 (In this context, Hayashi’s alleged biting of the young Brian 

Shepherd in order to get the baseball was entirely reasonable as a method for 

acquiring it.)"  

(The "1" was a footnote which read: "Thucydides, Peloponnesian War, 404.   It is an interesting historical note that, after the Athenians sacked Melos, the remnants of the Melians joined up with the Spartans in sacking Athens.")

So yes, I had too much fun.  Still, when I received the paper back over e-mail I was not expecting what I saw at the bottom:

Bottom left corner.  Zero.   As in- no points.  And the note, which as far as I can tell read "Is this ridiculous a general feature or limited to extreme/unusual circumstances?"  And which I first thought was relating to my thesis but then imagined might be just in reference to me in general.

The paper was out of five points, so I was, as you may imagine, dismayed.  I didn't think I had done a bad job.  Was my snarkiness finally catching up to me?  Was I going to pay dearly for having planted my tongue firmly in my cheek?  

I don't care about grades, but I do care very much when my general idea of what sort of job I did is entirely opposite of the result.  I e-mailed the professor asking, very nicely, if I could come in and have a chat because I didn't understand from the feedback what I had done so terribly wrong as to have my work product rendered absolutely worthless.  I hate not understanding.  I was distraught.

Then she sent me an e-mail saying, in part, "your grade is circled.  Let me rescan it."

I waited.  Then I got this:

Ah.  Four out of five.  Basically A-, in terms of how the scale works.  Right.  That makes more sense.

I still belong in law school!  Not a total failure!  Yay!  

Innocence Project meeting now.