Excuses

Back when I was in Grade 8, my teacher wanted me to participate in some lunchtime activity. (I don't remember what it was, but I think it involved athletics.) This activity didn't appeal to me, but more importantly, I just didn't have time for it because I had to walk home for lunch and back.  So I explained this to him.

What I didn't expect was that the teacher didn't just accept this excuse.  He told me that I should go home quickly, eat a quick lunch and return quickly enough to participate.  The trouble was that he was assuming I lived five or ten minutes from the school, when I was actually on the other side of town, a good twenty minutes away!  I should have explained this to him, but I felt too intimidated to take him on, so I let him think I would be there.

Of course, in the end I did miss it, and he made an issue of this afterwards.  All I could do was lamely repeat that I'd had to walk home and back.  This wouldn't have happened if he'd accepted what I told him earlier, but to him I was just the weak link:  a kid making excuses.  If only I'd been a bit older, I'd have insisted on showing him that he was the one being unreasonable.  But I wasn't up to it.