My first high school always had an end-of-the-year assembly, during which several awards were passed out. Would-be lettermen received their letters, the valedictorian and salutatorian were announced, and various other accolades were mentioned, always being met by the sound of quasi-enthusiastic applause.
Eventually, though, the time would come to recognize those students who had never missed a day of class. This was treated like it was the most impressive height that somebody could attain – the announcer would even say something like "And now for the big moment!" before going through their list of names – but by that point, everyone was usually sick of pretending to care about meaningless achievements.
That changed during my sophomore year.
See, each person with perfect attendance was expected to approach the stage, accept their certificate, and take a bow. The process of leaving the audience could take a little bit of time, though, so there was always a several-second-long span of silence. On the day in question, that same span seemed to go on for slightly longer than expected after the first name was read... and it was only broken when a lone voice called out:
"She's sick today!"
The auditorium was immediately filled with an explosive jeer of "Oooooooh!" from all of the students, followed by a lot of laughter and some seemingly random applause. It took the teachers the better part of a minute to restore order... but even that was short-lived: After that point, every additional name was followed by at least one shout of "They're sick today, too!" and more jeering, even as the award-recipients hurriedly grabbed their pieces of paper and ducked out of sight.
I'm sure it was the most lively that any "perfect attendance" ceremony had ever been.
ImWhatTheySayDeaf on May 5th, 2021 at 14:08 UTC »
I received 100% attendance in 4th grade and got a free ice cream dessert at Ponderosa
RamsesThePigeon on May 5th, 2021 at 14:15 UTC »
My first high school always had an end-of-the-year assembly, during which several awards were passed out. Would-be lettermen received their letters, the valedictorian and salutatorian were announced, and various other accolades were mentioned, always being met by the sound of quasi-enthusiastic applause.
Eventually, though, the time would come to recognize those students who had never missed a day of class. This was treated like it was the most impressive height that somebody could attain – the announcer would even say something like "And now for the big moment!" before going through their list of names – but by that point, everyone was usually sick of pretending to care about meaningless achievements.
That changed during my sophomore year.
See, each person with perfect attendance was expected to approach the stage, accept their certificate, and take a bow. The process of leaving the audience could take a little bit of time, though, so there was always a several-second-long span of silence. On the day in question, that same span seemed to go on for slightly longer than expected after the first name was read... and it was only broken when a lone voice called out:
"She's sick today!"
The auditorium was immediately filled with an explosive jeer of "Oooooooh!" from all of the students, followed by a lot of laughter and some seemingly random applause. It took the teachers the better part of a minute to restore order... but even that was short-lived: After that point, every additional name was followed by at least one shout of "They're sick today, too!" and more jeering, even as the award-recipients hurriedly grabbed their pieces of paper and ducked out of sight.
I'm sure it was the most lively that any "perfect attendance" ceremony had ever been.
Robert_Cannelin on May 5th, 2021 at 15:42 UTC »
Bob turns into a golf ball at the end there.