And so I cheated.
She was only blind in one eye and I didn’t cheat because she was blind, that just made it easier. I was a junior, and I accidentally signed up for trig because I thought I had to. Turns out, it was really, really hard for me and then I found out I didn’t even need the stupid credit to graduate so I wanted to drop it.
Playing sports was a big deal for me and there were certain things I had to do in order to be eligible to play. Passing all of my classes was one of them. Staying away from alcohol was another, but that was different. I was genuinely afraid that I would fail trig and then I would be benched. And without sports, how would I know if my parents loved me? I wouldn’t! So you can see it was a bigger deal than it seems at first glance.
I asked my guidance counselor to let me drop the class, and let me just note right here that the very fact that I was willing to enter my guidance counselor’s office is proof of how desperate I was. Suffering through a conversation with this guy was, quite possibly, the most painful thing about high school. He had a chronic and unreasonable amount of spittle gathered in the corners of his mouth that he tried to slurp between words. And his breath was like something from The Great Beyond (not the Good Great Beyond, The Other One). It was just like my science teacher’s. In my entire life before and since, I’ve never smelled breath like these two guys had. I don’t know how I was so unfortunate to have them both at my high school. All of you CHS grads, back me up. You know who I’m talking about. I just don’t want to write their names because I mentioned the science teacher in that other post and now sometimes people google his son’s name and find my blog. Makes me uncomfortable.
So I was desperate enough to go to the guidance counselor, and he said something like this: “I know you don’t need it to *slurp* graduate, but *slurp* it will help you in *slurp* college because then you’ll *slurp* be able to skip the *slurp* entry-level math *slurp* classes.” To which I replied, “If I take this class and fail it, I won’t get into college,” and he said, “You can *slurp* do this work. *slurp* You just have to *slurp* put your mind *slurp* to it.” No help. So I went and told my daddy.
My dad, spurred on by my I-will-have-to-sit-the-bench threat, went in and talked to the counselor and the principal who both gave him the same song and dance about potential and stupid college and all that. So then I had to cry. My dad IGNORED MY TEARS as if they weren’t magical daughter tears and said, “Well, they seem to think you just need to apply yourself,” and I said, “They don’t know! They have no idea!” and then I said something about my life being ruined and I hope he’s happy when I’m sitting the bench and I cried. I didn’t even fake cry; I was really that upset about this class. I, in fact, was applying myself and I could not do the work. It didn’t make sense.
My bad luck was that the math department was trying this new self-teaching kind of thing where they put us in small groups and we were supposed to help each other and learn on our f*cking own. I was born to be coached. I don’t have a single instinct otherwise. Also, it would have been better if I had had algebra right before, but I didn’t. The stupid schedule was set up so that you have algebra one year, geometry the next, then trig (if you’re dumb/motivated enough to sign up for it). Stupid. I was a victim of circumstance.
I sulked my way through the next couple of weeks and then I decided to take advantage of my teacher’s blind eye. If the adults were going to turn a blind eye toward my pain, I would use my teacher’s blind eye for my pleasure. When the gradebook was on her blind side, I changed my grades (just my homework grades, not my abysmal test grades). And I felt justified. And I still kind of feel justified. I know I’m an adult now and I’m supposed to know it was wrong and all that, but I told those people to let me drop it. I was failing, and I fixed it. Maybe I could’ve gone to tutoring, but I don’t remember that being an option because of sports. I couldn’t stay after school an hour to get tutored without missing an hour of practice, which would result in being benched, which is what I was trying to avoid. I believe that’s called a conundrum.
And, by the way, I think my teacher knew what I did, but she was almost 100 and in an unhappy marriage. (I know this because a couple years later, when she was almost 102, she left her husband. For her stepbrother.) I know, right? So see? There are worse things.
I went on to graduate and get awards and drop out of college. There are people who might say that this means I didn’t earn the scholarships and awards that I got, but I disagree. A little. If somebody wants to strip me of my Army Scholar/Athlete award, have at it. But you’ll never take my Foreign Language award! Well, if you know where it is, I guess you can take it. Because I don’t know where it is. I just carry the memory of it in my cold, black, trig-cheating heart.
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