Forging

 From early on in my academic years, I had been told by teachers and my parents how smart I was.  Testing revealed that I had an above-average IQ bordering on genius.  There were two problems with me being so smart.  The first was that I didn't study for tests. I just didn't see the need to study.  The second problem was that I just didn't care about my grades, even though my teachers and my parents did.  It was very hard for me to make an A or a B, unless it was in a class I liked.  Unfortunately, there weren't many of those classes being offered. When I got to college, I found that I was very good in Speech and Drama.  I loved those courses and made A's in those.  I had a 4.0 in my major which made up for those F's.

 In 8th grade, I was not doing well at all.  I got beat up every day by bullies. I hated coming to school.  My grades were suffering.  So, I decided to do something that would avoid the embarrassment of bringing home a bad report card.  A parent had to sign the report card, before the student brought it back to school.  I learned how to forge my father's signature.  

 He signed things in a very distinctive way.  It took practice to sign "John K. Durst" correctly.  The last name was easy, because he used the line off of the "D" to go above the rest of the letters and cross the "t" at the end.  I worked for about a week to get his signature down to a copy of his.  I would turn in the report card with the forgery, and my teachers never knew the difference.  Some kids would be creative and change "F's" to "A's" by just adding one line.  Some of the teachers got wise to that and changed from printing grades to using cursive writing.  It was harder to make that change for the students.

 One day, my father asked me why he hadn't seen my report card in almost a year.  I tried to make up an excuse, but nothing was very believable.  He called the school and asked them if they were still issuing report cards.  They said yes, every six weeks.  My deception had been discovered.  My father was mad at me along with my teachers.  I felt the sting of the paddle that my father gave me for my forging his name. From then on, my father knew when a report card would be released, and he demanded to see it.  Those days weren't happy after that.  

 I still didn't study, and I still didn't care about my grades, but at least I graduated by the skin of my teeth.  High School.  College.  Graduate school.  No more forging.