The seniors taking Sociology would end up in the family unit and be given a partner or able to do the project on their own. Those who chose to work alone were given a random scenario by the teacher. She was notorious for making these scenarios as hard as possible for the loners. At least with a partner you got to choose what you had to start with.
The partner pairings were done at random for my class. The guys in the class were to pick a girl’s name out of a goldfish bowl and ask if they would like to be their partner. Eventually my turn came up. Like the other guys I put my hand in and pulled out a slip of paper with a name. I saw the name and shrugged my shoulders. I move my thumb a little bit to realize I accidently took two names instead of one. I said out loud “You gotta be kidding. I can’t support two families”. The teacher came up and told me to ask both of them. I was thinking to myself, “I’m going to be taking a lot of shit for this”. I walk up to my first choice of the two names. Her name was H. I didn’t even ask. I showed her the slip of paper with her name on it. She agreed to be my partner and I turned and said the name of the second person I drew. Lucky for me she said “I was thinking of doing this alone”. I was grateful.
After that H and I worked together to plan the career paths and number of kids. Here is where the name of the event comes in. Our ‘kids’ were special wrapped and marked eggs. We had to return them the exact way we received them. The job of the rest of the school was to abduct the eggs and take them to Mrs. S so she could ransom them.
We decided to have two kids, hence two eggs. I don’t remember how H carried her egg around school, but I had mine in a big canister filled with cotton balls and a leashed lid. I had the leash going through a belt loop hole in my pants. In the job category, H chose to be a stay at home mom, and I somehow was a high paid writer. Actually, I chose writer and the teacher gave me a spending limit of $500,000 a year. I ended up doing all the numbers. I calculated expenses for everything that I could access and chose a house that would be a family home. H and I agreed on a car, but not on a house yet. I found two houses that would work. I did the financial math for both of them. For home insurance costs I just picked a number that would be considered reasonable, which was about $200 a month. I waited for the next class to talk to H about which house she would prefer.
When the class began, Mrs. S declared “Twist of Fate”. She went on to explain what it meant. Before getting with our partners, one from each partnership had to come up (presumably the husband) and draw a fate slip that would impact you in some way. I got up when it was my turn and drew a slip. I look at the slip and it read in these terms. “Your house caught on fire and it burned to the ground”.
“Oh shit,” I though. “H is not going to be happy.”
I then went over to H and showed her the pictures of the two houses. I kept my mouth shut about the fate slip and asked “Which one do you like?” while at the back of my mind, it was more like “What’s going to die?”. She chose the nicer looking one of the two. Then I was forced to show her the fate slip. Her eyes widened and jaw dropped with shock.
“What do we do?” H asked.
“Give me some time, I got to ask some questions,” I replied. I spent some time talking with Mrs. S on how much would a premium like the one I chose would cover, while everyone else was in a nearby computer lab working on numbers and their final paper for the project. She said “All of it. All you have to do is add some expenses for replacement gifts and clothes.”
I literally started to give the “eureka” laugh and continued to laugh as I went to tell H the surprising news. When I told her, her eyes lit up and her jaw dropped with a smile forming on her face. “I’ll work on the new numbers,” I said. “At least we aren’t living on the street.”
Before the next class started the next week, I got to class early as usual and Mrs. S told me H was bragging on how I was an economic genius. I didn’t believe it. I believed that everyone in my class despised me. I thought they were doing the same thing I was throughout high school. A ploy of respect and acceptance, so they would never suspect I would kill them when the time came. I assumed they were trying to lower my guard.