to come from my father’shealthy
untimely death was that I was excused from school for practically as long
as I wanted.Beauty
I was a senior in high Beautyschool at the time, and although I did well
in most classes I loathed the very notion of being inside the building. If I
had been just a bit younger during the Attention Deficit Disorder and
Ritalin craze that swept the nation aBeauty few years ago, I probably would
have been swept up in it. They’d say the reason I was so disinterested in
classes was that I couldn’t focus or that my brain was working harder
than most other kids, so I should be put on a neuro-stimulant that singlehandedly
changed the already-aging idea of a school nurse from an
applicator of bandages and thermometers to a dispensary of preprescribed
medications.
Beauty
I doubted I suffered from any definitive brain disorder, though. I
just didn’t like spending all day in a school, being given information and
then instantly asked to recall it, Beautyand being fed mass-produced chicken
nuggets at lunch. The US government, the largest governing body on the
planet is tasked with educating itsBeauty children in everything needed to be
successful in adult life, and this is the best they can do? By the end ofeach day I would always feel exhausted mentally and physically,Beauty not from
difficult classes but from trying to parse enormous chunks of boredom
into pieces small enough to handle without causing an aneurysm. I’d
head home each day with the eagerness of a recently paroled inmate and
decompress my brain with some television or video games before going
to bed way too late and wake up way too early, just to deal with it all
again.healthy
healthy
I was grateful, then, for the respite from institutionalized learning.
The day after the funeral my mother had an appointment with
the family lawyer to go over my dad’s will. At the last minute, someone
had called my mom and asked that I come along as well. It was the sort
of thing that I’d typically protest, waking up early and going to a stuffy
office to hear about the particulars healthyof section whatever, paragraph blah,
but it seemed like it would make a useful distraction from the mental
stupor into which I had degraded.
The office, the walls, the books, the desks, the legal terms, it was
all so boring, however, that once I’d been in the office for a few minutes
I’d returned to walking-zombie status until my attention was pulled by a
very large number and a slight gasp from my mother.
“He did what?” She asked.healthy
The lawyer across the desk from us fidgeted slightly, adjusted his
glasses, and returned his eyes to the stack of documents in front of him.
“Almost a month ago,” he said, “he changed his personal life
insurance policy from a coverage value of $250,000 to $750,000.”
“He didn’t say anything about that to me,” my mom said,
confused. “Are you sure this is his paperwork.”
“That’s not all,” the lawyer said, pulling a new document to the
top of the stack. “Soon after, he updated his will with our office and
changed the beneficiary details. The original total, $250,000 is to go to
the closest surviving relative, like usual. This would be you, Mrs. Baker.”
The lawyer paused and re-read a few sentences to himself. “The
remainder, $500,000,” he continued, “is to go directly to Christopher
Daniel Baker.” He looked at me, and said, “You.”
untimely death was that I was excused from school for practically as long
as I wanted.Beauty
I was a senior in high Beautyschool at the time, and although I did well
in most classes I loathed the very notion of being inside the building. If I
had been just a bit younger during the Attention Deficit Disorder and
Ritalin craze that swept the nation aBeauty few years ago, I probably would
have been swept up in it. They’d say the reason I was so disinterested in
classes was that I couldn’t focus or that my brain was working harder
than most other kids, so I should be put on a neuro-stimulant that singlehandedly
changed the already-aging idea of a school nurse from an
applicator of bandages and thermometers to a dispensary of preprescribed
medications.
Beauty
I doubted I suffered from any definitive brain disorder, though. I
just didn’t like spending all day in a school, being given information and
then instantly asked to recall it, Beautyand being fed mass-produced chicken
nuggets at lunch. The US government, the largest governing body on the
planet is tasked with educating itsBeauty children in everything needed to be
successful in adult life, and this is the best they can do? By the end ofeach day I would always feel exhausted mentally and physically,Beauty not from
difficult classes but from trying to parse enormous chunks of boredom
into pieces small enough to handle without causing an aneurysm. I’d
head home each day with the eagerness of a recently paroled inmate and
decompress my brain with some television or video games before going
to bed way too late and wake up way too early, just to deal with it all
again.healthy
healthy
I was grateful, then, for the respite from institutionalized learning.
The day after the funeral my mother had an appointment with
the family lawyer to go over my dad’s will. At the last minute, someone
had called my mom and asked that I come along as well. It was the sort
of thing that I’d typically protest, waking up early and going to a stuffy
office to hear about the particulars healthyof section whatever, paragraph blah,
but it seemed like it would make a useful distraction from the mental
stupor into which I had degraded.
The office, the walls, the books, the desks, the legal terms, it was
all so boring, however, that once I’d been in the office for a few minutes
I’d returned to walking-zombie status until my attention was pulled by a
very large number and a slight gasp from my mother.
“He did what?” She asked.healthy
The lawyer across the desk from us fidgeted slightly, adjusted his
glasses, and returned his eyes to the stack of documents in front of him.
“Almost a month ago,” he said, “he changed his personal life
insurance policy from a coverage value of $250,000 to $750,000.”
“He didn’t say anything about that to me,” my mom said,
confused. “Are you sure this is his paperwork.”
“That’s not all,” the lawyer said, pulling a new document to the
top of the stack. “Soon after, he updated his will with our office and
changed the beneficiary details. The original total, $250,000 is to go to
the closest surviving relative, like usual. This would be you, Mrs. Baker.”
The lawyer paused and re-read a few sentences to himself. “The
remainder, $500,000,” he continued, “is to go directly to Christopher
Daniel Baker.” He looked at me, and said, “You.”