Don’t be too sure

“Yes, Jan, 100 lines of ‘I will not be stubborn,’” she said, and then added, “by tomorrow morning.”

I glanced up at her. One-hundred lines. That would be about 4 pages.

“How do you spell stubborn?” I asked, wanting to know if there were two Bs or one.

She sighed. And then I swear, she said, “S-t-u-b-v-o-r-n.”

I frowned. “S-t-u-b-V-o-r-n? Are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said, raising her voice, “I’m sure. S-t-u-b-V-o-r-n.”

I could see her simmering impatience, her feet already pointed toward the door. And I had a bus to catch.

“Okay…” I said with a shrug, and wrote down one line. Who knew there was a silent V in stubvorn.

So that night, I did my math homework and reading and wrote out 99 more lines of: I will not be stubvorn.

After, my hand was tired, but I felt satisfied, even happy, because I’d learned something so unexpected and new. There was a silent V in stubvorn!

I have no memory of what my parents thought about any of this. I think I can still hear my father laughing with genuine mirth. I don’t recall getting into any sort of trouble about being “stubvorn.” Perhaps this sort of extra “assignment” was par for the course back then…

The next morning, I handed in my four pages and looked expectantly at the teacher. She glanced at the pages and her eyes seemed to pop from her head, cartoon-style. She glared down at me and opened her mouth to speak, then she turned and just put the papers on her desk.