No Advance Warning

When I got back to my office today after the calculus exam, I found four new messages in my inbox from students who couldn't take the exam:

1. Was in a car accident last night. Can't make it to class on time because it took longer than expected to get estimate of how much it will be to fix the car.
2. Vomiting since Monday.
3. Vomiting since this morning.
4. Family emergency.

Aside: What is a "family emergency"? Unless your family is involved in organized crime, I can't imagine what sort of emergency would require a college student to drop everything and leave town all of a sudden. (And if it was something fairly innocuous, like the death of a grandmother coincident with a calculus exam, wouldn't you just say that your grandmother died?)