The educator who deployed "Steamed Hams" as an anti-cheating tool made a craft choice that deserves credit before it receives the autopsy . Treating students as capable of getting a joke about self-serving denial is more respectful than most institutional AI messaging, which tends toward either sanctimonious warning or panicked prohibition. The post circulated not because it was a failure story but because it named the emotional register teachers know but rarely say out loud: trying your best, with something genuinely clever, and watching it land without consequence.