I See Where You're Coming From

Her name was An, and somewhere during the course of my stay, she mentioned that she was Vietnamese. She kept hesitating, swallowing, and saying "um," as she struggled with her English, and I think she thought she was harder to understand than she was. She was being too hard on herself. 

Image by Teece Aronin

She was about to cut my hair at a chain haircut place where they don't do much more than just that. I had a stylebook in my hands. My hair was very short, and the style in the book, medium-long. 

I climbed into the chair and pointed to the photograph. I explained that I wanted to grow my hair out until it could be styled like the picture in the book, but that, in the meantime, I wanted it cut in a way that wouldn't ruin my goal. 

She misunderstood and froze on the spot. She thought I wanted her to make me look like that immediately. She glanced from my bewildered reflection in the mirror to the photo in the book and back to my bewildered reflection. She looked stricken, as though wondering how she was going to break the news that my request was impossible. I explained again, more slowly, and this time she exhaled, saying quickly, as though it were one word, "OhthankGod."

There seemed to be a big personality and a dry sense of humor tucked inside her bright, attractive noggin that she felt too self-conscious to unfurl. But again, her English was better than she seemed to think - her spoken English, anyway; I can't know what her comprehension was except that she seemed to understand me just fine after I slowed my speech.  

Once we established that I didn't expect her to extract a longer hairstyle through my very roots, she smiled, calmed down a bit, and chatted more. It was mostly about the haircut, little about me personally, and nothing about herself. When she finished her work, she passed me a hand mirror and swiveled the chair so I could see my vastly improved head from all angles. And her shaky nerves seemed to return. 

"I love it," I said, smiling at her reflection. "It's perfect." 

She exhaled another long breath, her palm moving to her heart. "You sure?"

"I'm sure."

"I worry that I did not understand what you want."

I turned to look up at her, the flesh-and-blood her, not just the reflection over the workstation. 

"An, I could never do what you did. I could never go to another country where the language was so different from mine and earn a living. I don't think I'd ever find my way. Your English isn't bad at all. I have great respect for you."

Then she smiled, a broad smile built on complete understanding and immense relief, and with no need for scraped-up words. 

Sometimes It's Just Nice to Have Someone Do Your Work for You. Thank You, Help You Flunk Essay-writing Service!

Where is it written that everything should be written? Take this ad for the (let's call them) Help You Flunk Essay-writing Service. I found them when I was Googling around for something else. 

Dr. Bertha Baumgartner of 
Ainsworth, Iowa. Patience pays off.
Image by Teece Aronin. 

Please know that I am a gentle soul, even when it comes to other people's writing, and especially when said other people are writing in a second language. But when I saw this ad for an ESSAY WRITING SERVICE, I needed to be physically restrained. Please note that the italics are mine; everything else is all them. I also broke up some of their block paragraphs which were longer than anything you'll find in Manhattan:

Searching for websites that can write your essays? You are at the targeted place!

Students have a habit of doing their essays at the eleventh hour. This is because they are just too lazy procrastinating or at times there are some other commitments due to which they are unable to complete their assignments on time. Whatever the reasons may be Help You Flunk Essay-writing Service provides you timely essay writing service all at your home with ease and convenience. Just exclaim " Where to find websites that can write my essays?” and we will be most willing to help you out with your essays.

People generally tend to get confuse as they look for more websites that write custom essays online. With the advent of the internet, now students can approach these excellent websites that write essays more quickly. At Help You Flunk Essay-writing Service we guarantee all the students to have the most thorough professionals with our writers holding at least masters or PhD degree to ensure quality service. So don’t worry about the quality of the essays as we have got the best team all ready to assist you with your tedious essays. (Yeah, you lazy, stupid students and your tedious, TEDIOUS essays.)

Acquire credible services by a bunch of professional, knowledgeable writers at the best rates. (Who knew that professional, knowledgeable writers come by the bunch? Hey, Mr. Tally Man, tally me professional, knowledgeable writers,)

We are also known as one of the most reputable and committed team of essay writing services. If you are perplexed and double minded, then look at the myriad of benefits, which are offered by us.

• Our team is unswerving to excellence (Yup, they aren't a bit afraid of smashing right into it) and guarantees quality over anything. Our main motto is assuring our customers that their content will be reliable and involves rich content with accurate and detailed elements in it.
• There is no need to be concerned in terms of price range and packages, the rates are absolutely under the budget and are totally partial (Translation: If we don't like don't like you, we charge accordingly). We deliver unique content to our clients within the best affordable price deals.
• The content you will receive in the shape of essays is totally customized. They are perfectly tailored and designed to satisfy your academic interests and ultimately deliver according to that.
• Leave all your worries aside, as we offer essay writing services that are totally unique. We do not believe in copy pasted, recycled material and our expert writers make that sure as well. They rely on originality and ingenuity, which is depicted in the content.
• We provide a 100% guarantee that the allotted tasks will be delivered to you with in the prescribed time and with the availability of a speedy delivery.

Websites that write custom essays at the cheapest rates

With so many websites that write your custom essays online, the competition is getting tougher and the margins are shrinking like never before. Our company is well aware of the students’ needs and the competition in the industry. We know that students are living within a stringent budget for themselves and for this purpose we have devised the cheapest plan for them. Therefore, Help You Flunk Essay-writing Service provides you the best essay writing service all at an awfully affordable price starting from just $12.99/page. 

Furthermore, we keep on revising your work until you are satisfied with it (or until we get it right, depending on which party, you or us, gives up first) and never share your personal profile with any one to respect your privacy. So are you still reluctant about ordering your essays? (Hell, YES!) We are sure we have convinced you that we provide you with the highest quality essay writing service at the cheapest rates.

Customized essays online now available in US 

We would like to commend the team’s diligence that has finally paid off and officially announce that Help You Flunk Essay-writing Service is now available in US. We are constantly improving and growing our work to deliver you in the most efficient manner. No matter what lifestyle you have you don’t need to worry and compromise anymore. Many of you are sportsman or hardcore fitness trainers, others like to prefer travelling or reading books therefore they can’t write essays up to their peers’ standards. We would want you to be who you are and continue with your preferred activities because we are here in US to provide you with the most customized essays online. Just sit and relax and enjoy your day while we customize your essays according to your needs. 

We have been expanding our work ever since we started off with the venture with other countries such as UAE, UK, Australia and even Canada (because anyone can read online ads almost anywhere in the world and Canadians are too polite to say no) as our business place. Most importantly our academic writers are proficient in almost all the disciplines which include Micro Economics, Customer Relation Management, Art History, and other subjects. So hurry up students, don’t miss out the chance and order now to get customized essays for our website. We are hardly a few clicks away.

Teece here again. Note the case of Bertha Baumgartner pictured above. Baumgartner finally graduated from University of Iowa, Carver College of Medicine and is now a practicing urologist. She'd been a client of Help You Flunk since 1943 when the service still typed its essays on Underwood typewriters. Said Baumgartner: "Hindsight is always 20-20. Maybe I should have switched to another service, but I never change horses in midstream." 

"This is Memorial Day weekend and I decided that I deserved to phone this one in. So I kicked back and let the Help You Flunk Essay-writing Service write today's blog post for me. 

And it's staying here until I receive a cease and desist letter from their lawyer, which would have to be better written than their ad.