VAUGHAN LIT–English Professor Albert Palmer reported this week that he has “straight up had it” with students approaching him to discuss the study of literature. Palmer, who specializes in 19th-century American literature, said that he “doesn’t know why these impressionable young minds can’t go be impressed with something normal, or at least with someone who isn’t me.”

“Some of these kids just swing by my office because they actually want to talk about the material covered in class. Even when I tell them this won’t be on the test, they’re not even fazed,” said Palmer, who has a PhD from University of Chicago.

The author of a highly acclaimed dissertation on the influence of Nathaniel Hawthorne on Herman Melville’s later work described how he locks his door and remains perfectly silent if he hears a student knocking.

“Sometimes I pretend to be on the phone with my ex-wife; I just start cussing up a storm until they leave! Or I run out of the room as soon as I see a student try to weasel their little claws inside my office, I yell something like, ‘Car’s getting towed!’ Then I sneak around back and hide until they finally slink away,” Palmer said.

One of the nation’s preeminent scholars on the Dark Romanticism movement says he feels “creeped out” by the “dorks” that attempt to seek his expertise in order to better fulfill their education.

“I just don’t know what their angle is. Surely they can’t just want to talk about book things, right? You can’t trust them,” Palmer said, shaking his head.

Palmer tells his students he is unavailable for office hours all day Monday, Tuesday, Friday, and most of Wednesday.

“Yeah I say those are my days for ‘research,’ but mostly I’m just watching old Calgary Flames highlights,” Palmer said.

Despite having published over six books during his 18-year tenure at the University, Palmer admits that they are “just pure dog-s#@%, a mash-up of Wikipedia articles and what I overhear other professors babbling about in the break-room.”

When asked about his rapport with colleagues, Palmer equated it to Josef K’s alienation from his prosecutors in Franz Kafka’s prized work of dystopian fiction “Der Process,” or to Kurt Russell’s struggle with Chinese bandits in the seminal 1986 film “Big Trouble in Little China.”