Fear and Loathing in Detroit

I remember a time, I think it was third grade but after yea many years I don't really know, that I got a bad grade on a school assignment. It was the first of many I assure you. But at the time when you received a grade so very bad as whatever that one was, the paper had to be taken home to be seen by a parent, who would sign that they had seen it and you would return it to teacher.

When back at home on the afternoon where I received The Grade, I showed the paper to Mom. She read it, and then slid it back to me across the kitchen table. "Show this to your father tonight," she instructed.

Those were not words young Marty cared to hear. I am ashamed to admit that by nine or ten years old I wasn't as afraid of me Mom's wrath as I ought to have been. Oh, she could still bring it. I had a healthy respect for her anger. But Dad's anger was simply on the next level. Hell, when I was 50 and the old man was upset, I was intimidated. Dad didn't get mad often so that when he did, you knew it was righteous.

I dreaded showing that paper to me Pops. But evening came and he was sitting at his desk, and I decided to get it over with. "Mom says I got to show you this," I said meekly, handing the damning evidence over to him. 

Pops sat down the invoice he had been studying and read over that rancid assignment. Then he signed it and handed it back. "Do better next time,"  he instructed, with the barest glance at me before returning to his work.

The clouds parted and the Angelic choirs sang. That wasn't bad at all. I'm sure it wasn't anywhere near the response me Mom expected or desired. But she wasn't nearby and I was more than willing to leave things be. I never told her, and I doubt Pops did either. It likely was out of his mind in 30 seconds.

I don't know why he wasn't angrier. Maybe he was too caught up in his paperwork. Maybe my childhood imagination had run too rampant. Maybe he just didn't feel one botched job was all that bad in the grand scheme of things. But I was thanking my lucky stars that night. And it was awhile before my next poor grade.