Well, I didn't really think I'd get away with my Juno McGruff stunt, so when I got called in to the Dean's (Mrs. Quillacy's) office, I knew what it was about. Of course, the note on the slip that said "per Bobby Biggs" (the janitor's name) didn't help conceal what was about to happen.
Detention.
Oh yes, of course. Repeated "Insubordination," and "Disrespect," was what I was being punished for. To be perfectly honest I suppose I deserve it, but I still wasn't looking forward to it. Luckily for me, all I got was detention, which really wasn't that bad.
On the day of reckoning, I walked to the Finances office to serve up my time with Mr. Jaszkowski. His daughter was a good friend of my family; Michael had gone out with her for quite a long time. She was incredible - national scholarships, state championship in softball, seemingly perfect. I had never met her father really, but she had been a lifeguard at Lowell a couple of years, so I did get to see her plenty.
At first, Mr. Jaszkowski was actually going to let me off the hook, worried he would run the risk of me missing my ride. But I had actually told my carpool in advance and he was happy to stay a bit late. So he gave me some stamps and some letters, and I got to stamping. What wonderful mindless work. Mr.Jaszkowski sat down next to me and asked me what I was in trouble for. "Insubordination." I told him, recalling the words of the dean.
He laughed. "I've had a lot of kids come through here for a lot of things, but never have I heard that!"
As I told him about the events of Friday, I was happy to see that he was sympathetic more than anything. He told me that he knew how Bobby Biggs could be. I nodded in agreement, beguiled by his understanding. He even told me about his own story as a kid.
When he was a kid, he went to a catholic school as well, a little bit stricter than this one, and whenever there were assemblies, one of the monks (Brother Dan, I think it was) would stand by the doorway and make sure nobody left to go home until it was done. But Mr. Jaszkowski would walk right past him, and that Brother Dan would just left him go. Because there was an unspoken agreement between Dan and Jaszkowski. Brother Dan was saying, I'll let you go home and skip the assembly. Mr. Jaszkowski was saying that he wouldn't disrupt the assembly.
Ha! What a troublemaker, huh? He reminds me of me! And he's a successful businessman, managing the funds for the best school in Boise! That cheered me up. After laughing a bit over that, he simplified Friday's situation for me. "You can walk by a pig pen and see a pig snort at you, and you can go ahead and wrestle that pig to the ground, but at the end you'll be covered in mud and pig crap. So when you wrestle with pigs, you're gonna get covered in pig crap."
I got the point.
No comments:
Post a Comment