I'm reading the book, Sh*t My Dad Says, by Justin Halpern. I had it on hold at the library and picked it up yesterday right before lunch time. When I sat down to devour my sandwich and chips the book was right there where I had dropped it when entering the house. Despite the fact I'm reading another book, I picked this one up to accompany me while I ate. I haven't laughed this hard since I read Denis Leary's book while working out at the gym.
The background on the book (a true story) is that the author had to move back into his parents' house after his girlfriend dumped him. His 72 year old father, always a hoot, kept giving him little snippets of wisdom. Son posted his father's sayings on Twitter and suddenly it went viral and millions began reading him, earning him a book and TV deal. (Why that sh*t hasn't happened to me yet is still a mystery)
The chapter that got me was the one in which he is telling about the time in 6th grade when he had to do a science fair experiment. His father is really excited about helping him with this project because it is his right up his alley as a nuclear medicine doctor. He is hoping the kid will chose something compelling, but the son is more interested in the dog. The science experiment turns into "Can dogs recognize shapes?" Each day the kid is suppose to work with the dog by holding up a circle, a square and a triangle. Eventually the kid gets bored, forgets to do his work, panics when the teacher reminds them they have 3 days left, forges his research, and gets caught by his dad. His father is livid and says he has disgraced the science community. He makes him tell his teacher and then tells him to tell his teacher that he wants to apologize to the entire class. But his father wants him to write out his apology beforehand with his father getting first approval. The speech turns out to be this long winded, really complicated speech regarding the scientific world and all the 6th graders lose interest immediately. It was this speech that had me remembering...
I was probably in the sixth or seventh grade at the time. Our English assignment was to write a paper about a thing-a-ma-bob. To add to the excitement we were to draw a picture of our thing-a-ma-bob. I came home with the assignment and went to my mother, a former English teacher, for help.
"You have got to be kidding me?" she said, looking at me with disbelieving eyes. "What the hell kind of an assignment is that?" She ranted some more, something along the lines of the school system going to hell in a hand basket.
I finally managed to squeeze out a paragraph, and when I took it to her to proof she had her own paragraph. It went something like this: A thing-a-ma-bob is a doo-hickey that is attached to a whatcha-ma-call-it. She signed her paper What's Her Name. I chuckled upon reading it, but then choked when she announced,
"I want you to turn it in."
"What?" I said, already starting to cry at the thought.
"I want you to turn the paper in," she said smiling. "I think I did a great job. I want her to see it. It's a stupid assignment, and I want her to see my stupid response to her stupid assignment."
"But I don't know how to turn it in. How would I do that without her knowing it is me?"
My mother didn't care. My assignment was to turn in her paper, and I always listened to what my mother told me to do. She is was a scary woman back then. It turned out to be easier than I thought it would be. The teacher had all of us come up to the class and read our paper, leaving the paper in a stack on the podium. I worried and worried about how I would manage to leave the paper and finally decided it would have to be done under my own paper. This would probably give me away in the end, but it was the only thing I could think of at the time, and that is what I did, feeling very relieved when the job was done.
Then about halfway through the reading of the papers, the teacher suddenly remembered that we had drawn pictures and jumped up out of her seat to go through the stack and hold up the pictures. Eventually she got to my mother's paper and saw the name, Whats-her-Name. She demanded to know whose paper this belonged to and began to read it aloud. After that first sentence she stopped, read some to herself, her face turning red with anger.
"I demand to know whose paper this is because the things in this paper are not appropriate!" she said, waving the paper around. Of course no one said anything, which just pissed her off even more. "If the author doesn't come clean by the end of the school day there will be serious consequences because I will find out who wrote this paper!"
By this time, had I had the high blood pressure I have today, I would have died of a heart attack. My breathing was shallow, my heart accelerated, my palms clammy. I barely made it through the rest of the class sure she would realize that the paper had been under my own paper and that I was the culprit, albeit not by choice.
The bell rang, and I took my time gathering up my belongings until everyone had left the classroom. Then I made my way to the front of the room and boo hooing I came clean with the teacher.
"My mother wrote the paper," I sobbed. "She thought it was a funny assignment (did I mention what a liar I was back then?) and wanted me to turn in her paper too."
The teacher was horrified, probably embarrassed and unsure now what to do. She made some comments about the paper being inappropriate, which I actually defended by telling her it was an imagination assignment and the words were certainly not inappropriate, but made-up. She told me to forget about it and to get to class, and I ran like the wind.
That night happened to be open house, and so my mother couldn't wait to see this teacher after I told her the story. She and my Dad and my brother and I trooped down the hall and waited for the people inside the room to leave. Then my Dad, who usually stayed independent in my mother's matters, stepped forward, held out his hand, and said, "I'm Whats-her-Name's husband."
The teacher laughed hysterically, in one of those oh-shit-now-what-do-I-do-this-is-a-big-man laughs, and told my parents that it was the funniest paper she had read and went on and on about it, but by that time I had escaped down the hall, leaving them to it, hoping for the best.
And that was the end of the episode, but that time came back to me in reading this book, as did a few others. I'm not sure the book is for everyone because the language is quite over the top, but for those who want a belly laugh pick it up and enjoy!
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