The other night Husband and I happened upon a TV channel broadcasting a Jeopardy-type quiz show with two local high schools locked in a battle of memory and minutiae. As the buzzers sounded and the answers flew, we added our own IQs to the mix.
I’m nobody’s dummy but Husband is ridiculously smart and even looks it with his rimless glasses, neatly trimmed facial hair, and button-front sweater vests. When people first meet him they ask if he’s a college professor and they’re partly correct although it’s not his day job. Because I can be academically competitive when the mood strikes, we were both calling out our answers along with the teenage contestants, and as you might predict, we each had our categories of expertise.
Mine was anything to do with literature, music or pop culture. Husband’s was science, history and math. The questions were difficult and his propensity for answering correctly got so annoying that I started calling out goofy answers to distract him. Like if it was one of those impossible mathematics equations, he’d lean forward intently and say “x equals 4.8″ and I’d yell out “The Louisiana Purchase!” On scenic drives, Husband is likely to note the passing landscape as ‘deciduous foliage’ while I’m much more the ‘Look! Horsey!’ type.
As in most families, both of my kids had their own strengths and weaknesses in school and I recall one memorable junior high school meeting with Son’s guidance counselor where we discussed his score on the standardized test that supposedly predicted what fields of work he would be most suited for in his adult life.
The guidance counselor was a very young woman who seemed a bit distracted and overly concerned that her hair was in place and her lip gloss sufficiently moist. She gestured for me to sit in one of the chairs facing her desk and gave me a shiny smile.
MISS COUNSELOR: I’m so glad you could come. You know, I’m new to the school so this is my first opportunity to talk with the parents. I’m still getting to know the students.
As she was speaking, a friend of Son’s walked by the doorway and gave me an amiable smile. I asked him how he was doing and Miss Counselor told him to come in and take a seat. He shrugged and plopped down in a nearby chair. I figured he had the guidance appointment after mine. Miss Counselor shuffled through a folder and removed one of the sheets and looked up at me. Friend occupied himself with a loose thread at the end of his shirt.
MISS: I have the test results here and I’m sure they won’t really surprise you. Your son scored much higher on tasks requiring fine motor skills than classic academics.
OSV: Really? I thought his grades were pretty good, but I guess you’re referring to athletics. Sports have always come easy for him.
MISS: Actually, his gross motor skills aren’t tested here but his mechanical thinking is off the chart. In fact, instead of looking at professions requiring secondary degrees, he should really be encouraged to hone the talents he has, like automotive repair.
In response to my blank stare she continued full speed ahead.
MISS: Your son also has an easy-going, compliant nature. A career demanding he be a self-starter would not address his particular skills. He’s much better at following directions. There are wonderful opportunities today in the technical fields.
Here she turned to Son’s friend, busy unraveling his shirt.
MISS: Tell your mom how much you love shop class.
He looked up and said, “Huh?”
OSV: This isn’t my son.
MISS: Then what’s he doing here?
OSV: Beats me.
MISS: (turning to Friend) What are you doing here?
FRIEND: You made me come in. You told me to sit down.
I reached across the desk and took the test she was holding out of her hand. It had Friend’s name at the top.
Just then Son appeared in the doorway and greeted everyone.
MISS: I sent for you twenty minutes ago. Where have you been?
SON: Phys Ed. It would have been rude to leave in the middle of class. Especially while we were winning.
That’s my son.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos today have Nothing in Common
under construction
we are not your slaves
historic montreal
bike rack perspective
And Counting
I haven’t taken a formal leave of absence from school but I can only attend the one class that doesn’t require me to use my broken arm. Hand. Wrist. Whatever, I’m sick of it. My cast, artistically decorated at Passover by the children’s table, is as filthy as a street beggar in Calcutta. The fact that the inside of the cast makes my arm smell like a foot only makes me wonder what a foot cast smells like. Being a HUGE fan of cleanliness, I took the obsessively proactive route. Meaning that if all the Oscar de la Renta powder I’ve dumped inside that cast was cocaine, Courtney Love would be living in my bathroom.
A student in the one class I do attend asked me when I was getting the cast off and I told her ten days. She said, “Wow, that went fast.” It cracked me up because it reminded me of when I was pregnant with Daughter and it was a steamy day in July and I was the size of Rhode Island. I was standing on line in the local drugstore watching my feet swell when a neighbor spotted me and asked when I was due. In response to my wilted “Any day,” she shook her head in amazement and said, “Oh my, didn’t that go fast!” I was holding a roll of wrapping paper at the time and I remember thinking how much her head looked like a pinata. I think I showed remarkable restraint. For a fat girl.
Over the weekend I went to Marshall’s because Husband’s birthday is coming up in May and he loves strawberry rhubarb preserves and I don’t find it anywhere but Marshall’s. Weird, right? Speaking of which, what’s weirder, buying jam at Marshall’s or buying your husband jam for his birthday? Probably a draw. On the slow-moving cashiers’ line, the woman ahead of me picked up a tin of cookies from a nearby display and said to me, “Who would buy food at Marshall’s?”
I held up my jam and she stammered that it was probably perfectly good food and who could know nowadays with people dying from Taco Bell, etc. We reminisced a bit about tainted baby food and dead mice in Coke bottles and then she said that the puffed cereal her husband eats for breakfast every day was recalled this week for possible toxins and she wasn’t surprised because he’d been complaining of sharp stomach pains. She said it was extra scary because she’d put some in the dog’s bowl but thankfully he hadn’t eaten it. And I’m standing there on line thinking, oh yeah, let’s make sure nothing happens to the dog before you send your husband off to get his stomach pumped. But by all means first finish up your shopping here at Marshall’s.
Next.
Daughter’s Featured Fotos inspire us to ask What Are We Looking At?
computer parts
the anti-allstate
mama of truth
wall sitting