Topic: Gleb's short story (Read 263 times)

To be clear, does "forever" mean like a Blockbuster forever membership or my 4th grade spelling test is in a "forever" folder?

Aside:

While in forth grade, I once misspelled a word on a spelling test and cried when I was presented the test results. My parents were summoned to school to be questioned as to if I was beaten if I didn't get perfect grades. My parents were shocked because they never pushed me and was unaware of me trying to do my best. I was informed that it was okay to fail every now and then and not to cry about. From that point on I never did except once (get to that in a sec).

That was in Chicago, IL. Later, in Indiana, I discovered that I love math (no s). From 7th grade on I couldn't get enough of that shit, up to teaching myself Calculus as a Senior because it wasn't offered at the high school I attended. I aced everything math related: 2 years accounting (2 years typing, albeit not related but was a business course); chemistry (did not like, but aced it because I loved the challenge of solving the problems); physics (loved it); electronics (loved the labs and the problems); and of course all the math classes offered all through high school, always reading ahead and solving problems late at night till mom said I had to go to bed in our one-room home for a family of eight consisting of one honeypot (do the math as to how often it had to be emptied).

My SAT score was 720/800 (English et al./Math, respectively). Now back to the day I cried when I got one answer wrong. It was in math, the final test of my final year in high school.

I raced through the test so to finish before my friend, the Valedictorian, placing the test on the teacher's desk upon completion, thus always knowing who finished first. I still recall smiling at Cliff as I passed by his disk. The next day, I got the test results back and saw that I didn't get a perfect score of 100. I had missed one question. I went to that question and immediately recognized my mistake. After class I cried and roamed the halls till a teacher brought me to the principal's office to explain what was wrong. What was wrong is that test determined who was going to the math contest from the Math Club, and I was the only person in the club that didn't get a perfect 100.

There was a happy ending. As luck would have it, Cliff, my friend and dude who I smiled/smirked at was committed to a baseball game that Saturday, hence not being able to attend the math contest, so I was going in his place.

25 years later, I contacted Cliff asking him if he was attending the 25th reunited. He said he wasn't planning on it, but would make an effort to attend. Well, after several phone calls mainly by him, he did attend, along with umpteen others that weren't planning on attending till after I made that initial call, he, among others, thanking me for said effort at the reunion.

Hope you enjoyed the story, with apologies for the long aside.