A note on Notes

By the end of high school I had mastered my Mum’s signature hands down. Dad’s not so much, too scribbly. The reason to perfect such a skill you ask? Actually, no one is probably asking that, we all did it and we all know why - the ever-coveted parent’s note to miss class. If you had a doctor’s appointment, family obligation, or say an orthodontic appointment with Dr. Greene aka the ONLY ORTHODONTIST in our suburban city - man that guy must have cleaned up and retired well – if you had braces in K-town in the 1990s, you got them c/o Dr. Greene.

If you were to be absent for any such reason, protocol in the ‘90s was your parents would write you a note, you would then take said note to the school office and exchange it for an approved permission slip that you would then give to your teacher. E123.

Little did I know, Patricia, the secret budding entrepreneur that she was, had a side permission slip forgery business -- I’ll let her expand on her inventory acquisition skills in our next post -- information that I was only recently made aware of and would have probably been more useful to me BEFORE we graduated!

Now, Duke of York High School used to have student organized charity Fashion Shows that would require the student “models” to miss class to attend a fitting at the local mall. I was participating in that year’s show and the night before such a fitting, my Mum told me that she would leave a note on the counter for the following day with permission to miss class. Perfect.

You can imagine my palm to forehead moment when I went to bring the note to the school office and realized it was still sitting on the kitchen counter. I had seen it at breakfast but had forgotten to grab it on my way out.

My fifteen-year-old self thought, “Well, she wrote the note and so technically I have my Mum’s permission. It’s not really forging if I have that, right?” (My forty-?-year-old-self is going to stick to that logic, it holds.) Having practiced my Mum’s signature over time “just for fun”, I put my training to the test, doctored up a lil note and Bob’s your uncle.

Half a dozen of us who were modeling for the same store skipped off to our fitting, tried on some clothes, returned back to school and all’s well that ends well.

Staying late that day to work on an art project, I decided to call my Mum to tell her I was going to be delayed getting home. I ambled up to the second-floor payphone (that’s a phone you share kids, three for the whole school – can you dig it?) and called her. She was agreeable and appreciative for the heads up, and as I was about to hang up she queried, “How was the fitting today?” “Good, it was good,” I replied easily. “You forgot your note,” she observed lightly. “Yeah no I know, I told them you gave me permission to go and they said that was fine,” I lied. Beat. “I came by the school earlier to drop it off at the office for you.”

Of course she did, of course.

Now my little brain is spinning out, did she do this before or after my forged note? “But I guess you already gave them one.” After, definitely after.

I can’t help but picture my Mum and the secretary exchanging glances knowing that they’d caught me. Now, I completely understand this is pretty PG for high school hijinks, but here’s the thing I took away from all this…

IF PATRICIA HAD TOLD ME THAT SHE HAD A F#@*KIN PERMISSION SLIP FORGERY RING GOING DOWN I WOULDN’T HAVE GOTTEN BUSTED!!!

Love,
Grace