~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Guess who the first
person was that I saw when I walked into the office. You got it, Wiggle Butt
Johnson. Two of the secretaries are looking at the back of his head and one of
them is picking out bits of gum while he was telling them the story of how it
happened. So they all look over at the door as I walk in, and Wiggle Butt
raises one eyebrow and kind of cocks his head.
“So. Do you have
some special reason for coming to see us?”
The secretary that
had been picking the gum out his hair was Mrs. Tender, and she was married to
the head deacon at my dad’s church.
Johnson gives his
head a nod in my direction as he says to the secretaries, “This is the kid that
I thought threw this wad of gum at me.”
Mrs. Tender smiles
at me and says that there was now way I would ever do anything like that. “He’s
my pastor’s son, for heavens sake.
“Hi, Randy. Looks
like you got caught up in a bit of confusion. You would never do anything like
that, would you?” And she said all that with this stupid smile and shaking her
head no the whole time.
Man, did I ever wish
she hadn’t said I was the preacher’s kid. Stink. When someone knows you’re the
preacher’s kid, then everything you do wrong is twice as wrong than if you were
a mechanic’s son, or candy maker’s son, or the stupid offspring of a Martian or
something stupid like that.
“Hi, Mrs. Tender.
Ah… no, I didn’t throw any gum at Mr. Johnson.”
“No, he didn’t do
it,” said Mr. Johnson. “He had peanut breath, so he was innocent.”
The other secretary
looked at Mr. Johnson a bit puzzled. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Well, this is grape
gum. So I smelled his breath and he had peanut-butter breath. It couldn’t have
been him.”
“Of course not,”
said Mrs. Tender. “What can I do for you, Randy.”
“Well…” I didn’t
quite know how to broach the subject at hand. “Umm… Mr. Boardman… he asked me
to come down here.”
The three of them
stood looking at me waiting for more.
“Did he want
something?” asked Mr. Johnson.
“Ah, yes. He wanted
me to come down here and… ah… you know, wait for him.”
“Wait for him?”
“Yes. He said he was
going to meet me down here.”
Now Mr. Johnson’s
eyebrows dropped into a frown. “Why does he want you to wait for him?”
Stink. I was pretty
much painted into a corner, so I decided I should just let it out. “I was kind
of a little bit rude in class.”
“What kind of rude?”
“Well, I called him
Einstein, and then he sent me down here.”
“I’m sure that most
mathematicians would love to be given that kind of distinction. Is that what
you were doing? Were you complimenting him?” I mean, what a stupid question.
When is it ever a compliment to call someone an Einstein. You never see a
courteous driver and call out the window, “You drive like Einstein.” It is
always an insult.
“Not exactly.”
I could see Mrs.
Tender’s face starting to grow a look of almost horror. It was becoming plain
to me that she was now the one who was wishing that she had not pointed out my
dad’s position.
Then the VP says,
“So, what exactly was this Einstein comment meant to be?”
“I was being
sarcastic.”
“So he sent you down
here?”
“Yes. He said to
wait for him.”
“And he is coming
down after class?”
“Yes.”
“You know what Mr.
Boardman is going to do?”
“No.”
“He’s going to walk
you through that door, right there. Do you know who’s office that is?”
I was tempted to say
something like it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure that out, but I’d
gotten control of myself by then. So I just said, “Your office.” I mean, what a
stupid question. Why are math teachers and vice principles always asking the
most stupid questions in the world?
“That’s right. My office.
Do you want to wait for Mr. Boardman, or would you like to take the walk in
there now?”
What was the point
of waiting? If Boardman was there, then everything would be lopsided in his
favor- stinking teachers and vice principals always stick together like some
stupid tweedle dee and tweedle dumb. But if I went on ahead I might be able to
control things a little better, you know, without the bias of Boardman.
“I’ll go now.”
“Okay, lets go
then.”
As the door to Mr.
Johnson’s office was closing behind me I caught a glimpse of Mrs. Tender dialing
her phone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
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