As the little girls grew up, they became clever and mischievous.
One day, toward the end of their first grade year, Sue called and asked that I go to the school and pick our trouble-times-two, up from the nurse’s office. Apparently they were sick. I can’t tell you how many times the two of them were sick together. Never did one get sick without the other which worked to our advantage. That way, only one of us moms had to take time off from work. I’d stay home for one illness and Sue would stay home for another. As employees go, we were pretty reliable, taking about half the time off mothers normally do in order to care for sick children.
Yet, the school often questioned this joint sickness thing. I guess they doubted these two little girls were always legitimately taken ill with the same thing at the same time. But Sue and I liked it. It just made life easier for us a lot more fun for them.
On this particular day, Sue was laughing when she called and told me the girls were claiming to be sick and had gone to the office with a note supposedly written by me saying they had taken ill and needed to go home. According to Sue, the school secretary could hardly contain her laughter over the scheme our daughters had cooked up.
So, off to the school I went, anxious to see the note I had supposedly written. When I arrived, Staci and Kimi were sitting side-by-side on a cot in the nurses’ office. With a twinkle in her eyes, the nurse handed me the note.
I studied the note while carefully controlling my face. “Hum, gosh, I don’t remember writing this,” I said. It was all I could do to keep a straight face. Every other word was misspelled and even a few letters were printed backwards. They had forged my signature. It was so cute I thought I’d die as did the entire office staff. Everyone had seen the note and desperately struggled for composure. After all, we wanted them to learn an important lesson here, right?
“This doesn’t even look like my writing and I’m sure that’s not my signature.”
Big eyes and pale faces told us this caper hadn’t been thoroughly thought out. Where, we all wondered, did two little first grade girls come up with the idea of forging a note? Unfortunately for us, this was just the beginning of years of mischief brought on by our darling daughters.
Yet, somehow, they grew up to be responsible, hard working women we are both so proud of. And I have to say, Sue and I would not have wanted things any other way!
