The Importance of Being Educated

The kids’ grades came in the mail yesterday, and I was thinking, did the school really have to send their grades to arrive during the holidays? Couldn't it have waited till a bit later? Like, when the kids are in their 40s?

I think it would go something like this.

SCENE: A handsomely appointed breakfast parlor, sometime in the future. Flying cars can be glimpsed occasionally through the French doors, as well as some construction work being carried on in the distance by a mixed robot/human crew in hard hats and safety vests. On the wall is an imposing formal portrait of an attractive middle-aged woman with an intelligent, determined, yet kindly face. At the table, a healthy, prosperous-looking elderly couple is eating breakfast.

A robot butler, which receives a living wage and full benefits as required by the Widget Treatment Fairness Act of 2019, glides into the room on its hoverpads, bearing the mail on a small silver tray. SYLVIA picks up the mail and glances idly through it, tossing a few pieces aside. Her eyes linger on one envelope and she opens it, her brow furrowing, and pores over its contents for several moments.

EDGAR: What’s that you’ve got there, honey?

SYLVIA: This is very strange. It’s Susie’s grades.

EDGAR: Her grades? Do you mean her latest polling numbers?

SYLVIA: No, no, I mean grades. From her sophomore year of high school, apparently.

EDGAR: Good lord. They’re a bit late, aren’t they?

SYLVIA: Somehow the school got our address wrong. This seems to have been sitting around in the dead letter office for a couple of decades.

EDGAR: I always wondered how she came through Algebra. I remember she was struggling a bit.

SYLVIA: She failed.

EDGAR: What?!

SYLVIA: And it wasn’t even close. She failed Algebra, and English, and World History, and -

EDGAR (interrupting): But – but – I always thought she was doing so well in school. She was such a promising kid, playing sports, studying piano, volunteering as a school office aide... hey, wait a minute. Let me see that envelope!

SYLVIA (handing him the papers): Well, she did end up President of the Federated States of Earth.

EDGAR (looking over them): My God. With these grades, I’m surprised she didn’t end up working for the Skyway Department.

SYLVIA glances out the window, where a robotic flagger’s ambiguous signaling has just caused a 15-car pileup, and smoking debris is raining down onto the concrete roadway with which the crew has paved over a creek for no readily apparent reason, seeing as how all traffic is airborne. Edgar! How can you say such a terrible thing about your own daughter?!

EDGAR: How the hell can anybody get a 14 in P.E.??

SYLVIA (wringing her hands): Well, I don’t know, you remember that bad stomachache she had…

EDGAR: For twelve weeks?! I don’t think so!

SYLVIA: But, dear, it’s been such a long time. Why get all worked up about it now?

EDGAR: Long time, my ass. I want her impeached! I’m calling the Secretary of Education.