I was one of those supremely irritating kids who never had to study in order to get A's and B's. I was a knowledge sponge who could absorb and regurgitate in the manner preferred by the US scholastic method and I did it without batting an eye. Whatever I didn't pick up in class was usually pretty easy to figure out or bullshit through. Until second year French anyway.

I didn't get French. It didn't just come to me the way math, science or history did. I didn't understand the rules for genders of words (What do you mean "dog" is female? It's got balls for Chrissake!) and I just didn't care to learn them. Verb tenses, weird spelling, variable pronouns, second person plural possessive¹...I hated it all. Because I was lazy and it didn't sort and file into the brain sponge like everything else did. Who needed French anyway? It would only be a few years until everybody who mattered was speaking English².

Well, as you can imagine I didn't apply myself to French and the results were fairly predictable. When I managed to pay attention in class I might squeak in a B or two but I was generally a C student in the Tongue of Love³. I suppose it was inevitable that the unthinkable would happen. I, Jim Peacock, knowledge sponge, achiever of the effortless A's and B's, I got a D on a test. My world shattered.

The school policy was that the student had to get their parent's signature on such travesties. This was meant to insure that the parent was aware of what a potential retard they were raising that their child might be in academic jeopardy. It was a decent policy and as a parent I approve of it. Why wait until there's a bad grade on a report card? Let me know about problems as soon as they happen. My Mom was similarly happy to know about my bad test score when I got it, but she wouldn't sign it.

Excuse me? Mom? The teacher said you have to sign it and I have to bring it back to her. Mom? You really have to sign it, they SAID SO! What do you mean you've never had your name on a D paper before in your life and you're not about to start now? Mom, I'm going to get in trouble if you don't sign it! Please!

Mom was serious. She wouldn't sign it. She didn't care that I was going to get detention/suspended/failed/expelled/executed for her failure to sign my test. She refused to put her name on my D paper. And to make matter worse, she refused to punish me for getting a D! She just said that she had thought that I was a much better student than that but she guessed she was wrong after all and that we could look into special classes or remedial school. My Mom was tough and boy did she know how to push my buttons. That was my very last D ever (until party school college).

But back to my new central problem. Mom was breaking the school rule! She wouldn't sign my paper and I was going to get into trouble. I told my teacher about the problem and she very clearly didn't believe me. She thought I was lying to avoid showing the bad grade to my parents. She took me down to the office and called my Mom herself. She was almost giddy with the chance to rat me out to my parents. It was an enlightening conversation for both of us.

Madame Teacher: Hi, is this Mrs. Cuviello? (remember that Mom was remarried here - different last names)
Mom: Yes it is. How may I help you?
Madame Teacher: Hi Mrs. Cuviello. This is Madame Teacher, Jim's French instructor? I thought you would like to know that your son is trying to hide his poor test results from you.
Mom: He got another one? I cannot believe that. I'll definitely speak with him when he gets home tonight.
Madame Teacher: Another one? So you know about the D he received then?
Mom: Of course. He showed me that last night. I believe you were the one who instructed him to do so.
Madame Teacher: Why yes, yes I did. Mrs. Cuviello, if you saw it last night why didn't you sign it like you were supposed to?
Mom: I've never had my name on a D paper in my life and I'm not about to start now.
Madame Teacher: But you have to sign it. It's our school policy that a parent needs to sign on D papers or worse.
Mom: And why is that?
Madame Teacher: So we know that the parent has seen the paper.
Mom: I've seen the paper and you know that I have. There's no need for me to sign it.
Madame Teacher: But it's a school rule. You have to sign the paper.
Mom: You are a nut. Go away.

Of course I'm filling in Mom's side of the conversation with conjecture based on the side of the conversation I heard but I'm pretty confident that it's more accurate than inaccurate. Mom was just as unswayed by Madame Teacher's pleas as she was with mine. It got a bit nasty at the end and Madame Teacher made some not-so-subtle threats about what might happen to a certain poor performing student if said student's mother didn't play ball. Mom told her that Mr. Cuviello was a lawyer and that she was litigious⁵ and that if anything happened to me outside of the normal consequences of a D on a test that she would sue the school faster and harder than John Holmes could screw Linda Lovelace.⁶

This was well before the age of casual litigation we enjoy today and that threat uttered in coldly impassive tones effectively ended the conversation. There was a bit more back and forth between the school an Mom but she stuck to her guns. Suffice to say that Mom continues to be able to claim that she's never had her name on a D paper.

But what did I get out of this? Well, I learned several life lessons. First, I am not responsible for others' actions, just like Mom wasn't responsible for me getting that D, and neither am I responsible for fixing others' mistakes. Second, you do not have to do what you are told to do simply because somebody told you to do it. Third, schools are tiny little bureaucracies and as such care for rules far more than they care for logic. Lastly, in a fight between a German/Irish housewife and a petty bureaucracy bet on the housewife every time.

1 One good thing that did come out of French class was an appreciation for the second person plural possessive. Thusly began my love affair with the Southernism "y'all" in all its glory.
2 History has vindicated me here.
3 "Tongue of Love" has a distinctly different meaning for me now and although I don't like to brag I can definitely say that I've not only graduated but have also gone on to schools of higher learning, if you get my drift.⁴
4 I'm saying that I eat pussy really, really well.
5 Mom wasn't at all litigious and Mr. Cuviello was a lawyer who dealt in insurance claims. Still, she was absolutely 100% serious about this threat.
6 Okay, she probably didn't quite use that analogy. Remember, I'm filling in her side of the conversation as best as I can.

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POINTS: 3 points to the first person to name my inspiration for the title to this post without searching for it. 1 bonus point if you can tell me the caliber of his gun.