Sick...of Wheelhouses

I'm covering for Suzy at the Writing Center on campus. She's sick - cough, congestion, sore throat, ear infection that's made her all but deaf, and bone-deep fatigue. We went to the urgent care center yesterday to get her looked at and to get some serious medication. She's at home trying to sleep it off (which is hard when you can't, you  know, breathe). One of the few truly generous, nice people in our ward volunteered to take Parker for most of the day in order to give Suzy a legitimate break. Being home alone with Parker ain't exactly slipper-and-bon-bon time if you know what I'm saying. I've already taken three personal days in the last two weeks and can't really afford to take more. Otherwise, I'd be at home keeping Parker occupied while Suzy dealt with her Nyquil-induced fever dreams in the other room.

As it is, I'm here hanging out until six. This is good because I actually have a ton of papers to grade. I've cleaned my desk, recorded every quiz and journal entry my students have handed me, I've responded to all the emails I can, and now there is literally nothing to do but grade papers. Sigh. I'm sure I'll get to it. I have one student, a non-trad returning after who knows how long, who was practically hyperventilating when she turned in her paper. I told her my usual turnaround time was about two weeks (one week of avoiding grading, one week of grading furiously to get them off my back) and she about passed out at the thought of waiting that long to find out whether or not she was going to fail. I told her to relax but I might as well have told her to use her magical powers to fly herself to the sandy beaches of Ain't Never Gonna Happen Island and rest there until I get the papers done. I didn't get the sense that "relax" is really in her wheelhouse, as it were.

By the way, I really hate the term "wheelhouse." Maybe I hate it because I first heard it from Randy Jackson on American Idol - which is enough to make me hate a thing. Maybe it's just because it seems like such a lame, faux hipster shorthand jargon term that's supposed to make everyone nod and say, "Oh yeah, 'wheelhouse.' Got it, man." A quick Internet search reveals this tidbit from the Chicago Tribune:

"Wheelhouses are small spaces with excellent visibility, where the skipper is in control of the boat and prepared to face any dangers that it might encounter. In a wheelhouse, a boat's pilot can practice his 'core competencies' in an area with lots of 'blue ocean' and the opportunity for plenty of 'blue-sky thinking.'"
 
"Whenever someone wants to say, 'We would be good at this,' or 'We have potential here,' they say, 'This is in our wheelhouse,'" Watson told us in a phone interview. "What they mean is, 'This is a promising area for expansion.'"

All of which explains the term's roots. But why, suddenly, is everyone saying it?
"I think business words are a bit like those horrible illnesses that people catch on airplanes and cruise ships," explained Martha Brockenbrough, author of "Things That Make Us (Sic): The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar Takes on Madison Avenue, Hollywood, the White House, and the World." "You're sitting there, just trying to get where you need to be, and someone nearby is either honking into a Kleenex or puking over the railing. The next thing you know, you're spewing forth in similar fashion."

So, forgive me for spewing forth that lame little saying. But now we know, right? We don't have to wonder what a wheelhouse is anymore and we can actively resent people who talk about them without really knowing what they're talking about.

Anyway, I should probably grade those papers. Or something. Maybe there's some data entry here at the WC I could do.....