The Puddins’ family came by the house today to pay their respects to The Mamba. Was good to see Mrs. Puddins and Little Jack Snack Pack. While they were here, this story came up and thought I’d share it with the rest of you.
Growing up I wasn’t what you would call a great student. Let me clarify… I was always in the honors and advanced placement courses and was never out of my depth in any way. I was just lazy. You see I was unfortunately just the right mixture of smart and lazy that I figured out that I could ace my tests and not do any of the homework and still get C’s. And with honors courses extra weight my C’s were worth B’s.
The down side of this? Because the big tests that were worth the most credit were always at the end of the semesters, my mid-semester progress reports were always horrible. One of my more vivid progress reports is the one that occured when I was 16.
At my school progress reports were always computer printed and mailed to our homes. This meant that I was always able to be the filter between the mailman and my parents. Most of the time I was the first one home from school, sometimes my brother beat me. But either way we were both religious in making sure we always stepped over the mail that fell through the front door slot everyday. This was true for every day of the year… except when progress reports were on their way.
In the most cosmically inconvenient timing ever planned, there was a progress report coming to my house just days before my 16th birthday. And it wasn’t gonna be pretty.
Anyone that has read my earlier episodes of Tall Tales knows of my penchant for stashing as well as that I had a girlfriend at the time that lived in the next town over, which I needed a car to visit. So as I’m sure you can imagine as a 16 year old kid on the verge of being able to feel a booby on the regular, I wanted a car real bad.
So that fateful day when that progress report arrived I did what came natural to me. I stashed it. And just to prove my total awkward nature, I didn’t hide it in my room like a normal kid. No, I hid it under the family’s grandfather clock… in the living room… in plain sight. So weird, right? Who thinks of hiding something under a grandfather clock? Me!
The only part left to tell is how it all played out. Now this was a long time ago, so it’s a bit fuzzy, but this is how I think it went down. I shit you not, it was ON my birthday. I believe my mom had come across the parent of a friend of mine at the store and the parent had asked how the progress reports went over in our house. My mom, of course, says “What progress report?”
Yes, I know I am a shitty person that did a lot of shitty things. And I am really sorry in hindsight, because I never thought of anyone other than myself, and it had to really suck for my mom to be in that position.
Now we are mere hours before my 16th birthday party and my parent’s are grilling me as to where my progress report is. And I am sure that I probably tried to lie first, because I was fucking stupid. But eventually I relented and had to do the world’s lamest walk of shame ever. Ladies, you think the walks of shame you have had to make after a one night stand is bad, with your bed head all crazy and missing one sandal? Try seeing the look of disappointment and sheer what-the-fuck-ness on your parents faces as you cross the very room where you were just arguing and see your first born child get down on his knees and reach under the grandfather clock to retrieve his progress report. Seriously, what the fuck was I thinking.
Epilogue: To my parents credit that night I got a 1976 Mustang that they had just bought for me and perfectly detailed. I felt like shit. I also didn’t get to drive it for 3 weeks while I was grounded. But somewhere there is a picture of me standing in front of it that night with this big goofy smile and even goofier looking plaid Stussy shorts.
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All of my Tall Tales stories can be read by clicking the “Tall Tales” link in the left sidebar under Species.
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