Back in 1983, I was just a wee little monstrosity nearing the ripe old age of eight. We came back from Xmas vacation and the teacher wanted us to write some banal little report on what we did. Having done nothing interesting and being bored with the endless busywork that passed for education in ISD 279, I didn’t feel like doing it.
So I didn’t.
Naturally, the teacher wanted to know why. Not having a good answer handy – I’d already learned they didn’t comprehend that “this is a stupid waste of time and I have better things to do” was in fact both true and valid – I said the first thing that came to mind. I said I was depressed. Figured that’d get her off my back.
Nope.
She got all faux concerned and wanted to know why I was depressed.
Crap. No idea. Uhhh…
Because we had spaghetti for Xmas dinner! Yeah, that’s it!
Protip: don’t do this. Ever. Because if you do, you not only have them required to investigate your depression, but now they have to see if you’re one of the poors on top of it.
Of course I knew none of this at the time. I was eight. This was a Grand Master Plan worthy of Ernst Stavro Blofeld himself! I’d gotten away with not writing a few paragraphs of insipidness and the teacher was leaving me alone! Score!
Then I went home. No big deal, typical after school cartoons and such. Everything’s fine. Everything’s good. And then the phone rings. It’s the school “expressing their concerns” and calling the old people in to discuss said “concerns.”
I was, of course, interrogated at length on the subject, but since the school hadn’t mentioned exactly what they were so concerned about I had no clue what the problem was. Seriously, I’d just told what should have been an obvious lie to get out of a stupid assignment. All anybody knew was that something had made the school people concerned. Concerned enough to call a meeting at the school the next day.
So the next day we went to this idiotic meeting. Principal, a few teachers, and a half dozen social workers are all there waiting and glowering at the old people. Cue lots of “what’s the problem” and “as if you don’t know” stupidity back and forth. It went several rounds before the teacher finally exclaimed “you gave him spaghetti for Xmas dinner! Now he is very depressed! He was too depressed to write his Xmas vacation essay!” To which the old people looked at each other like “what the actual…”
And burst into howls of laughter.
Clearly this was not the reaction the school people were looking for. Once the old people had calmed down enough to at least in theory answer their questions, someone asked them “you think this is funny?!”
Yes, actually.
Theodora went first. “We didn’t have spaghetti for Xmas dinner. We spent Xmas eve with my grandmother. She’s from the old country. She put on a spread that could feed a house full of gypsies. And did. Because there was a whole house full of gypsies eating it. None of it was spaghetti.”
Cue the school people looking at each other like it was starting to dawn on them.
Then it was time for Boggs to take his turn. “We spent Xmas day with my mother. She makes enough food to feed an army just because it’s Tuesday. She made three tables full of food for Xmas dinner. No spaghetti there either.”
Back to Theodora. “And even if he did have spaghetti on Xmas, where’s the problem? How many kids in this school would have killed for a plate of spaghetti on Xmas just because it meant they ate something?! Has it occurred to you that maybe he just didn’t feel like doing the assignment?!”
Yeah, I started riding the short bus less than a year later. Turns out the people that passed for educators back then really hated getting outsmarted by an eight year old.