I have a constant stream of students to tutor in the writing center, which is good, because I’m always busy, but is also bad, because empty appointments were supposed to be the time I could get caught up on abusive emails, eyebrow-tweezing, and Secret Office Masturbation.

I am still trying to figure out what I should and should not do for students. Sometimes I feel like I’m street-slinging and they need their fix, but they’re afraid I’m the fuzz. They listen to my general advice about structure, and content, and the formal academic voice. They nod their heads and jot little notes. But some always want more.

“Go ahead,” one said. “Tear my paper up. Make it bleed with red ink.”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I don’t do that. I’m just your fellow student and I’d rather give you advice to help you become a better writer overall.”

Sometimes they lean in and say it quietly: “I think I have a problem…with semi-colons.”

I always have to say something about the fact that we only have fifty minutes, and I need to take a ‘global approach.” They slink away, looking for someone else to do their nitpicky editing for them.

However, if I face many grey areas in my duties with them, I do feel strongly about what they should do for me.

DO:

• Bring the tutor a Diet Vanilla Coke.
• Tell the tutor she looks “completely rad wearing 100 jelly bracelets.”
• Look at Frannie’s paintings that that are taped to the wall and exclaim, “Look! A future de Kooning!”
• Bring the tutor more pictures to hang on her wall. It’s bad enough that the joint doesn’t have windows, man.
• Act pleased to receive a service that comes at no extra charge, other than your exorbitant tuition.
• Tell the tutor how much that one phDude sucks as a professor, because she knows, and delights in hearing it.
• Complain about hot professors who are married. I know, they ARE totally hot. I can’t believe they are married either.
• Tell the tutor you read writing manuals for pleasure, and mean it. Mmm, style guide.
• Bring me some damn chocolate, already. Fran’s.

DO NOT:

• Offer to drop off your paper and come back later. This is not the damn dry cleaners.
• Ask to see a paper the tutor wrote. She is waiting for you to leave, because the tutor’s paper is due in, like, an hour.
• Look sad that the tutor thinks you are a good writer and doesn’t have many suggestions. If you want to get whipped, go see your professor.
• Lick the tutor.
• Pat the tutor.
• Quote Nirvana to the tutor.
• Smell the tutor’s hair.
• Cry in the tutor’s office. It’s a pass-fail paper. If you stopped crying and wrote it, you would probably pass.
• Look at the tutor’s dirty pillows. The answers to your problems with effective transitions are not written on the tutor’s luscious rack.