Collected by Louis Phillips & Robert Milgrom
“Then the whining schoolboy with his satchel/ And shining morning face, creeping like snail/Unwillingly to school.” – As You Like It
Dear P.S. #46,
Johnny did not mean to miss class yesterday. He just didn’t realize the bell was tolling for him.
Mrs. Donne
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Dear P.S #46:
Please excuse my son Holden for cutting English Class this week. He doesn’t care for that David Copperfield kind of crap.
Yours.
Mrs, J. Caulfield
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Dear P.S. #46:
Please excuse our son Sammy for missing classes last week. His uncle Godot promised to drive him to school. We are still waiting.
Sincerely,
William Frank Beckett
Dear P.S. 46:
Please be advised that my son Ralph is dropping out of school. He is sick and tired of being ignored, of constantly raising his hand and never being called upon. He
Feels he is invisible to his teachers.
Sincerely,
Alfred Ellison
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Dear P.S. 46:
Please excuse the absences of my daughter Simone. Apparently she has discovered the other sex.
Best regards,
Francoise Brasseur de Beauvoir
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Dear P.S. 46:
Please excuse Merursault for being absent from class. His mother died today, or perhaps yesterday. We can’t be sure.
Thank you,
M. Camus
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Dear P.S. #46:
Our son Martin nailed his thesis and his spelling tests to the front door of your school, We hope you received them.
Mr. and Mrs. Luther
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Dear Ms. Beecher/ Our daughter’s teacher:
Some enchanted morning
You will see a stranger
Across a crowded room –
That will be our daughter returned to school.
Sincerely, Oscar Hammerstein II
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Dear P.S. #46
Yesterday our son was changed into a tree,
Yours in haste,
Mother of Acteon
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Dear P.S. #46,
Little Prometheus will be unable to attend classes for a few weeks. He is currently bed-bound with third degree burns and severe liver pains.
Sincerely,
Clymene (Prometheus’s Mom)
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Dear PS 46:
Please excuse our son Karl,Jr. or missing class all week. He was on his way to class when a giant pterodactyl
swooped down and carried him to Russia. There he managed to place his math
homework in a rocket and aimed it toward the school. Before he could light a match,
he was captured and sent to Lapland, There he captured a reindeer and rode the
animal back home.
Yours,
Karl Friedrich Hieronymus, Freiherr von Münchhausen
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Dear PS. 6
Please accept this apple from my son as a way of apologizing for missing your class yesterday. Merely pull the arrow out or just eat around it.
Sincerely,
Wlliam Tell
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Dear P.S. 46:
We have decided to keep our son Clark at home tomorrow. We don’t believe it is in his best interest to take part in your Science Fair celebrating the discovery and manufacture of Kryptonite.
Yours,
Mr. and Mrs. Kent
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Dear P.S. 42:
Please excuse our son Stanley for tardiness.
He made a hasty exit stage left from our house, but he missed the streetcar.
Yours,
Mr. and Mrs. H. Kowalski
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Dear P.S. 42:
Please excuse my absence from hygiene class today I am a sick man… I am a spiteful man. I am an unattractive man. I believe my liver is diseased. However, I know nothing at all about my disease, and do not know for certain what ails me. I don’t consult a doctor for it, and never have. No, I refuse to consult a doctor from spite. That you will probably not understand. Well, I understand it nevertheless. My liver is bad. Well– let it get worse!
An anonymous note from the underground
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Dear P.S. 32:
I am certain as a favor to me you will excuse Michael from missing 3 years of High School and you will pass him with honors.
Yours/mine
Vito Corleone
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Dear P.S. 12
My son –Dracula – finds it necessary to take his classes
only at night. Does your school offer such a program?
Sincerely,
Vlad the Impaler
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Dear P.S.23:
Excuses? We don’t need no stinkin’ excuses! We got guns.
Rick Bermudez,
Commander-in-Chief, Contras
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Dear P.S. #46:
Mr. Kurtz, he dead!
Joseph Conrad
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Dear P.S. #46
Please excuse our son Dante for being absent. He was trapped for three days in the New York Subway System. It seemed like eternity.
Mrs. Alighieri
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Dear P.S. #46:
Please excuse our son Vincent for being so late last Thursday.
He cut himself (very badly) while shaving.
Mrs. Van Gogh
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Dear P.S., #46:
I have chosen Freedom.
J.P. Sartre
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Dear PS 42:
Please allow Annie to sit out gym class this week. She sprained her trigger finger.
Thank you
E. Oakley
P.S. – Please forgive the bullet holes in this note paper.