Group dynamics

I used to get annoyed with people who complained about group projects. Hating group projects is about as original as dreading Monday mornings and liking snow days. But I never really had to do a group project until this semester, and now suddenly the only thing I ever want to do is complain about them.\nDuring class, my group arranged a meeting time that we made sure worked for each of us. This ended up being Friday afternoon, and we were to meet in the library.\nFriday came, and half of us showed up. After a little work and a lot of complaining about the others, we agreed to meet again on Sunday and e-mailed the rest of the group to let them know.\nOver the weekend, the following e-mails started pouring in one-by-one from our M.I.A. group members. And I’m not making these up.\nThe first e-mail arrived almost immediately and was from a girl who said she missed our meeting because she got a migraine and had to be rushed to Promptcare for shots. This e-mail was sent from what I can only assume to be the computer lab of the emergency room where she was hooked up to an IV, receiving emergency blood transfusions as she typed.\nThe sender of the second e-mail said she had rushed home to take care of her mother who was having a severe allergic reaction to something that I imagine must have been pretty serious to leave her so debilitated. Must have been second-hand smoke or milkweed.\nThe third e-mail was sent by a girl claiming to be left bedridden from a very dangerous strain of bronchitis (I have had bronchitis every day since college began. I manage to get out of bed.)\nI think these girls should have collaborated on their alibis. I wouldn’t have questioned their stories had they claimed to all be involved in the same accident, such as a car bombing or a plane crash. But could they really have suffered through more separate medical emergencies on this particular Friday morning than most experience in a lifetime?\nAnd yet it seemed heartless to dismiss the possibility. As a compromise, I decided that I would believe Migraine Girl but not the girl with the dying mother or the one with the bronchi filled with explosive mucus.\nBut when they all missed our second meeting on Sunday, and the devastating sequels to their sob stories started flooding my inbox, I decided to look these goons up on Facebook. Migraine Girl’s away message was “at the gym,” and she was tagged in several party pictures from over the weekend in an album titled “Nipple Fest.”\nTo my lost group members: We are giving our presentation this week and have not planned for you to be a part of it. If you have the guts to show up to class, you better be visibly sick. Half-dead even. I expect to see wheelchairs, third-degree burns, missing teeth and broken bones protruding out of your disintegrating flesh. Otherwise, prepare to face my wrath.