The Excuse

When I was in ninth grade in Bozeman, Montana, I had my first experience with needing a written pass from the office to get back into classes. It was quite a system. When you missed a day of school, or even a class period, you had to go to the attendance office with a written excuse from your mother (or maybe your father, but everyone brought notes from their mothers). These notes were filed for comparison. Your note would be checked against the previous, to make sure you weren’t bringing in a fake excuse.

Then, the secretary of attendance or whoever she was would sign a little printed slip of paper, rip it off the pad, and give it to you. You had to present this official document at the beginning of each class period for review and initialing by each teacher. The last teacher of the day would keep it and send it back to the office. This was for an excused absence, as opposed to an unexcused absence, which could lead to trouble.

What a Pain!

This junior high was the largest school I’d ever attended, and I’d never before had to go through this much rigamarole after an absence. It seemed like a lot, especially for a girl with an older boyfriend who had a car. I had a bright idea. I wrote the first note from my mother myself. When the attendance person compared the current note to the original note on file, the handwriting matched. I didn’t have a single unexcused absence that year, even though my attendance record was abysmal.

Mr. Orr, who taught social studies, told me I was missing too many classes. He was angry at me, and it made an impression. All these years later, I can see his curly hair, his red face, his slightly buggy eyes as he leaned his face near mine, the sound of his angry voice telling me I wasn’t living up to my academic potential. I replied that I had straight As, so of course I was living up to my potential. He insisted. “No, Karen, grades aren’t everything. No matter what your grade is, if you’re missing this much class, you could be doing better.” I had to admit he was right. I started going to his class, even though it was right after lunch and that was prime time for skipping.

Additional Crime Skills

I was fairly skilled at forging signatures. It wasn’t difficult to palm one of those little pads of paper, and I’d sign them ten at a time and hand them out like candy. There was an attempt by the administration to halt the circulation of forged passes by drawing secret symbols on the backs of the official excuses, but I had friends who were not delinquents who’d happily cue me in as to what the symbol was, a star or a dollar sign, and in which corner I should place it. I carried on.

My disruption of the ninth grade attendance system only lasted one year (to be fair I also gave passes to some of my favorite eighth graders – Dee Strong, I’m looking at you). In tenth grade, I moved to Yakima to live with my boyfriend. As my pretend husband, he wrote my notes. This was laughably weird for everyone involved. It bothered the attendance ladies to the point where they just let me go back to class without an excuse.