Late

Everytime I encounter a praying mantis, it's like this. I see them, them see me. I am like "oh cool a mantis." It gets all defensive, raising those fucking scythe arms. I am like "whoa bud chill" and then it flies at my face, I smack it out of the air and am like "now why'd you have to go an do that for? Now you're fucked up."

Hey, the were honest. I'd let it fly
- And scare the poor student even more???

This may have worked. I once excused a student for being late because the geese were being aggressive.
- who cares about collage attendance?
  in my uni no one cared, of you're late, it's just a bit rude, of you don't show up, no one cares.
  what matters are the graded assignments and exams. if a student aces those but never stepped in a lecture hall, does that matter?
  
  One of my biggest pet peeves in college was professors who took attendance. Bitch, I'm paying you to be here, if I don't want to come to class, that's on me. It was usually when they knew that most people could skip every class and still pass.
  I even once had a class in a lecture hall with at least 100 students, where the teacher took attendance using some stupid "clicker" thing that we had to buy at the school bookstore. Ridiculous. Pisses me off just thinking about it.
  
  This was for a lab I was teaching, so they had to be there in person. It was a 3 hour block, so I wouldn't have even asked why they were late. I only even remember 5+ years later because they came rushing in with an explanation and I thought it was hilarious.
  
  If you can pass my class without attending lecture, why wouldn't you just ask to test out of the class??? ~~I scream, into the uncaring void.~~
- i'm not a teacher, but if i was i'd excuse it just because they took the effort to compose such a crazy story. probably learned more than i'd have taught them that day a anyway
  
  Oh, the funniest part of this to me was how certain I was it was true. I used to have to find alternate routes into the building all the time because of the geese. I think they nested in the bushes near all the doors. If it wasn't, it was a very good lie and I appreciated the effort anyway.
  
  If the class was on Kafka I'd give them top marks
  
  I’m newly a teacher (of adults), and I accept literally any excuse anyone gives me. I suspect that I’ll change that as time goes on, but I don’t even really get excuses.
- I accepted "I'm sorry, it was just too nice a day to spend it sitting in a basement with no windows" once because man, they had a point.
  
  Immediate failure for not being academia levels of brain-broken. You'll sit in your cube and like it!
- Damn cobra chickens getting all hissy and angry just because I don’t have bread for them. Entitled bastards.

He's so high he doesn't realize that the bug blocking his door is the professor
- It's Professor Hanks
  https://sib.illinois.edu/departments/entomology/directory/faculty
  Fun fact: he's in fact Tom Hanks' brother
  
  I thought you were joking
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Hanks
- Why does she have wings!?
  
  Redbull

Respectfully, I am in tears,
My brain at random
- Might make this my work signature tbh

There's no bug. But there's a mirror and that student has turned into a bug.
- OP is Gregor Samsa
- That time I was reincarnated as a bug and got spooked by my own reflection.
  
  modern manga titles be like
- Kafkaesque
- Totally Kafkaesque.
  
  Kafkaesque as shit

I mean, I’m still marking you absent. But you’re definitely getting an A for creative effort!
- Even sending me a note that you're going to be late is more consideration than I usually get, but I've got enough on-spectrum students that I can very much see this being a legit scenario (though I teach CS so it's a little heavy on the neurodivergent representation). IDK, if they're an otherwise decent student I might let this slide (once), though almost entirely for the novelty of someone actually letting me know they're running late.
  
  The specific wording of the note is a direct reference to Kafka's metamorphosis! So depending on the class and year, teacher should be proud.