Pushkin, John Sorria.
Do you remember that when we were kids, you had promised me. You'd said, if you live to fifty years old, Do you remember the promise that you made. No, you said, Jonathan, with your eating habits and your lack of exercise regimen, there's no chance you're going to live to fifty. But if you do make I never said that. You said, if you make it to fifty, I will send you on an all expense paid.
Cruise, John, I never would have said that.
Well, you know, I've got my childhood journal right here, so let's take a look. January fifth, nineteen eighty one. Today Jackie promised me a cruise.
I never said that. It's never the kind of thing.
I ever would have said.
Yet there it is. So what are you thinking? Kokomo? Never ever Wait, it doesn't say cruise, it says booze. You'd buy me booze. My penmanship was terrible, So what do you think? In krem Dumont from Gimblet Media, I'm Jonathan Goldstein and this is Heavyweight Today's episode Mary Clode. Mary Clode, Hello, So how's your day been.
That's nine forty one in the morning. I haven't done much.
Yet this plucky pip is Mary Clode, and she's come to me today with a problem as well. She should, because not only are problems my metier, but Mary Clode is one of my oldest friends. We met in the fifth grade in Montreal. So you were half French, half English. The marry side represents the English and the clothed side represents the French exactly. And what does the hyphen represent as they set up the microphones? Because what's the good of problems without microphones? I make some small talk to
put Mary hyphen Clode at her ease. How How was it nice.
Just making conversation because we can sit in silence. It's fine.
I'm just making some chit chat.
Just let's go.
Back when Mary Clode and I first met forty years ago. We were a couple of shy, outsider kids. Even though Mary Clode lives in Canada and I now live in America, in many ways, we still lean on each other the way we did when we were kids, which brings us to why we're talking today. Mary clodes problem dates back to our days in grade school together fifty She thought it was behind her, but in the last couple of years the problem is returned, its threat multiplied, and its
size exponential. Because Mary clodes problem is a math problem.
I started failing math being grade seven. I got all the answers wrong. I did terribly. When my mother went to parent teacher interview. What was the name of the grade seven math teacher, I don't remember.
Was it Monsieur spirit In.
Yes, that's it, that's exactly it. Yeah, So he told my mother, no, no, there's no problem. She understands. She just gets the answers wrong.
What does that mean?
Exactly? That's what my mother said, if she understood to get the answers right, Just how you get a sense of how this whole nightmare started.
What kind of math was it back then? Was it algebra?
I don't know, you think, I know. I think there was something with brackets, you know, like there was a number and then there were numbers in brackets, and then there was something else I remember, like an a's and b's and c's or something.
You know, you know there's a name for that. Actually it's called algebra.
Right.
Although Mary Clode knew nothing, not even the kind of math she was doing. She was so quiet and unassuming that she just got passed along herded into eighth grade math. Let me see if I can remember who the grade A teacher was. Was it mister Goyech?
I think it was, yeah, nice.
Guy everyone called mister Goyech, the gooch walking into class with his hockey bag slung over his shoulder, hair wet from a hockey ring shower. The gooch didn't seem like he wanted to be in class any more than we did.
I remember liking mister Goyech. I remember still not understanding a bloody thing I was doing, honestly.
But the gouch was too nice to fail Mary Clode, so again she got passed along.
Grade nine came along and and the teacher was mister Cohen. You remember him.
Yeah?
Yeah. He decided he didn't like me for some reason, which was very rare because I was so quiet and shy, like there was not one teacher that didn't like me, because they probably didn't even notice me. So I don't know. I think mister Cohen just passed me so you wouldn't have to have me in his class again. A second year.
After Miss Cohen, there was Missya Stehauer, then missyr Ryan. Each year Mary Clode was scooted from one monsieur to the next, one grade to the next, scooted all the way to senior year, her last year of high school math. On the first day of class, Mary Clode walked into the room and took a seat facing the teacher.
He's reading the attendance list, and then he sees my name and he says, Marie, Marie, what are you doing in this class? You don't belong here. You're never going to pass.
Under the teacher's advisement, Mary Clode dropped the class. We went to a terrible, terrible I remember. Their way of trying to inspire us was like, I think you and I sat in the dumb row together.
We did.
They called it the dumb row, and they tried to inspire us to get out of the dumb row. There was like five rows, and I remember there was the really dumb row behind us, but then there was just the dumb row, which was like a second from the wall. And we were trying, like we were working really really hard to get into that middle row.
Did we make it?
I don't think so.
I don't think so either. You know, every year, the same thing I'd sit in class, I would try I'd copy down the examples from the board. It seems so simple. There's a disconnect, you know, like it's on the board or it's in the book. It seems simple. I say, yeah, I can do that. I understand that, and then it comes down to applying it, and I just I can't
apply it. And then you know how it is, once you start failing, you don't do well in the exam, then you're discouraged, and I just I didn't understand it.
You know, but didn't you have to pass math in order to graduate high school?
What are you saying? I don't have a high school diploma.
I don't remember seeing you in a yearbook.
You signed my yearbook, you jerk.
Despite not taking her final year of high school math, the administration allowed Mary Clode to graduate, but only because of what happened in the last few months of the semester.
If you remember, my father was very sick growing up, and in the spring of the last year of high school, my dad went into the hospital, I see you, and he never came out, So you know, we basically kept a vigil by his bed, and you know, I was holding my father's hand when he died. And to get back to reality, that really could not. I just I didn't care. I didn't feel normal, I didn't feel like everybody else, and I didn't want to hang out with them,
you know what I mean. Yeah, it changed all my friendships. Really, like you and I stayed friends because you're very good.
With death, by the way, thank you.
You were different. But yeah, so just it changed everything, you know.
Yeah, so.
I never went back to school, never wrote my final end of year exams. I guess my mom made arrangements with the school, and because of the circumstances, they just passed me. Basically, they graduated me. So yes, I did pass high school, Jonathan, maybe not the conventional way, but I passed not in the last.
High school ended and Mary Clode put math behind her. She met her husband, had two daughters, and worked at their family country store. Over the years, she's done all kinds of jobs, from waitressing to sales to working in a funeral home, but none of it ever felt like a calling, not the way being a mom did.
I always worked school hours, as I call them, meaning, you know, I walk my girls to school every day and I pick them up every day whether they wanted me to or not, even in grade six. So really, my focus has always been, you know, really being a stay at home mother.
But Mary Clode's daughters are now entering college and don't need her as much, so she's begun thinking about what she wants to do next.
And I thought, like, this is it, Like you know, I want to I'm going to finally get some sort of a career going for myself that I enjoy, that I can do that I like. So I got the idea in my head that I wanted to be a real estate agent, and I sign up for this course.
Over the next year, Mary Clode began the requisite real estate classes real estate law, real estate appraisal, real estate architecture, and construction. She passed them all and really enjoyed it. But then Mary Clode got to the final class and ran headlong into her old problem and thus the reason I'm talking to her today, because that final class was a real estate math, geometry, percentages, and algebra, in other words, high school math.
So that's where I find myself. Now. I need to pass high school math to get my real estate license, and it's killing me. It's really killing me.
Mary Clode is living a classic anxiety dream, the one where you're back in school. Unprepared for a test. But for Mary Clode, it isn't a dream, it's a living nightmare. The one thing that's standing in the way of her new life is math.
It's haunting me. Really, I can't. I just all these old fears and feelings of anxiety and feelings of hostility, like I really hate it, you know.
Each time she opens her math book to work on her homework, Mary Clode is instantly plunged back into adolescence. She's reminded of the teachers who told her she couldn't do it, that she shouldn't even bother trying. Worst of all, she's reminded of her dad.
At my daughter's high school graduation, there was awards given to a couple of kids, three kids actually, who basically accomplished so much despite I think all these three kids in the graduating class have lost a parent. And meanwhile, they were all straight A students. And I remember I left that graduation. I said to the kids like, basically like what the fuck? You know, Like, how come these kids were able to stay focused and stay on track
and do so well in school? And yet that event for me, basically his followed me for thirty five years. Because I never finish anything like that's that's me, right, you know me. I can't close the deal like I just I can't finish.
Mary Clode says that high school math was just the first in a series of things she never finished, from her bachelor's degree in polly CSCI to joining the Peace Corps, from opening a bookstore cafe to becoming a civil rights activist. Mary Clode is dreamt of doing all kinds of things.
So there's there's always all this stuff I want to do, but I can't get there. And I think somewhere along the line, like I didn't get that lesson, you know, how to get from point A to point B.
And now before Mary Clode can make it to point B, she has to go back to point A. And I'm going back with her. You're my friend, right, yeah, but I believe in you, yeah, and I want to help. I'm going to make sure Mary Clode passes that class like one of those teachers in one of those movies who walk the school hallways carrying a bullhorn and a
baseball bat. I'm going to be there through the hard times so Mary Clode can lean on me until she's able to stand and deliver and I'm going to be waiting outside the door after you take your exam flashdance style, and you're gonna come running down the hall. And instead of a bouquet of flowers behind my back, you know what, I'm gonna have what big plate of poutine?
I would honestly love that. That would be lovely. Can we go out for drinks after celebratory whiskey? Yeah, on your dime.
It's all taken care of. I'm gonna do it, except she doesn't. After we bid goodbye that day, so full of hope and determination, Mary Clode refused to take a single one of my phone calls for an entire year. What the hell happened after the break? After my last conversation with Mary Clode, I was ready for us to
hit the ground running. I saw myself as a cross between mister Miaggi, Julie Andrews, a pre math Walter White, and that droopy eyelidded teacher who really seemed to care from that TV show I can't remember the name of. The point is I was going to make a difference. Personal change is hard, but if anyone was going to change personally, it would be the result of my near constant,
unrelenting help. What with my twice daily emails packed with inspirational quotes, and my thrice daily voicemails in which I inspiringly yelled those quotes over the theme song from Rocky How could we fail? And yet over the course of an entire year, Mary Clode continued to ignore me.
There is getting her way.
You know that this is one of Mary Clode's oldest friends. Is this doctor Jackie Cohen, MD, I have on the line. She also happens to be one of mine. Because Mary Clode won't answer my calls, I phoned up Jackie to tattle. I tell her how Mary Clode hasn't spoken to me since I vowed to help her get a real estate license.
You're gonna help her?
How are you gonna help her?
How hard can all this real estate stuff be?
Like?
Like like in a house, the toilet is A in the bedroom, B in the bathroom, C in the living room.
I could see her thinking that the toilet goes in the living room.
Jackie tells me she already went the trying to help Mary Clode route without success.
Is anyone able to help her? To help her organize herself? I try to teach her how to, like, like do five pages a day, like to just make it, you know.
But the problem with Mary is if she feels like anyone's pressuring her, she.
Feels the need to without.
Mary Clode has a problem with authority. And if my freshman semester of developmental psychology taught me anything, it's that these rebellious tendencies often begin in the home. Hello, Helen, Hi, Hi Johnny, Katie. So I phone Mary Clodes home and speak to her daughters. Helen is now a freshman in college and Katie is about to turn eighteen. They're also I'm proud to say, my god daughters. Have you guys been keeping tabs on how your mom's doing with her math?
Uh?
I don't know. I think she's still trying.
Have you seen her doing any homework?
No?
Helen and Katie are both excellent students, especially when it comes to math. So at first they tried to tutor their mom. And how did it go.
I feel like you shouldn't have a family member as a tutor.
That is very diplomatic, very diplomatic.
You know what I'm saying.
I hear you. I'm reading between the lines every time they tried to help, Mary Clode would get worked up and slam the book shot. The girls grew frustrated and stopped offering help, and Mary Clode stopped asking for it.
She just has like an idea in her head that like she hates math and she doesn't want.
To do it.
Yeah, I think she doesn't have enough faith in herself.
Hello Mary, thought.
I wouldn't answer. Eh.
After Helen and Katie make an appeal on my behalf, Mary Clode finally picks up the phone and lets me have it.
You've nagged, honestly, you've nagged the desire for me to complete the I was on a roll honestly till you got involved and you turned me off the whole thing because you're such a freakin nag. I swear to God.
It's hard to ask for help. But asking for help was never Mary Clode's problem. Her problem is accepting it when it arrives. So I let her have it. You know, I wouldn't be I wouldn't bother you with all of this if it weren't for the fact that that first time when we talked over a year ago, I really heard someone that wanted to build a better life. For themselves. So what happened to that? I mean, isn't that something that you still want to do?
I want to do it.
I just don't want to do the freaking math. I told you that I don't like maths.
No shit, It's clear Mary Clode isn't going to do the work for herself, and she's certainly not going to do it for me. But there are two people for whom Mary Clode would do anything, And so I remind her of something she said way back when we first spoke a year ago, something I just so happened to have recorded.
What kills me is that my kids are so so supportive of me going back to school. They were so proud of me. But it haunts me, you know, because there they work so hard in my kids, and they've accomplished so much, and they inspire me. Really, they're just so great, you know, and they're so proud of me that I don't want to let them down. Like, even if I don't even work as a real estate agent, I have to finish this class because I don't want
them to think I'm a quitter, you know. I don't want my girls to see me as a quitter.
That is a big motivation.
You're right, You're right.
Like I said, I'm gonna do it. I gotta do it. I gotta follow through. That's really not my strength, following through, but I'm gonna follow through.
To complete the math class, Mary Clode must first pass several homework assignments with a sixty percent or higher. Only then will she be eligible to take the final exam. So to get things started, I find her a tutor. Mary Clode is surprised when I tell her I'll be auditing their first class. You think I'm gonna let you go off to your first day of class by yourself. Of course, I'm going to introduce myself to your teacher. In truth, I also want to make sure Mary Clode
doesn't bail. So together we phone the tutor, Suzanne.
My eldest student was eighty. He survived the math class, so wow.
Yeah, see there's hope for you, Mary.
So if you have any questions that don't hesitate to stop me as I'm explaining stuff to you. If there's something you don't understand.
Before the lesson, Mary Clode made me swear I wouldn't embarrass her in front of her new tutor. So I promise not to make a peep. I'm just here to offer silent support.
We're moving, taxes becomes a challenge, so I just want to make sure that it's understood. Maybe you already know how to do that.
Yeah, yeah, right, Mary Cloude is yeah, writing Suzanne the same way she used to. Yeah, write mister goyetche Only five minutes into the lesson and I can already tell Mary Cloude doesn't understand a thing, not a jot. If she hopes to pass, she needs to tell Suzanne when she doesn't understand, or someone needs.
To if the bank charges you three in a quarter.
Sorry Mary, Yeah, I just wanted to jump into say if there's something you don't understand.
Get off.
Okay, okay, okay.
Ignore him. I've seen her working on it a lot more than before.
Really.
After a few weeks I convene a daughter's teacher conference with Helen and Katie.
Like I've seen her after dinner, pull out her notes and like start doing some algebra.
Seems like more motivated.
She was saying how much she loved the tutor.
Yeah, she said she wants her to be her life coach.
Sure, Mary Clodes enthusiastic now but she was also enthusiastic when we first spoke back before she ghosted me for a whole year. I ask the girls what they think we can do to keep our problem child on task encouragement.
I think we need more positive reinforcement.
Yeah, she really needs like structure.
So I devise a scheme.
Hello, Hi, Johnny, how are you for structure?
I phone Mary Cloude every Friday morning on her drive to meet Suzanne to make sure we're still on track and for positive reinforcement. I invite a special surprise guest to each of our weekly check ins to offer words of wisdom.
You ready, And I'm just a puking.
From excitement now. I can hardly believe who I was able to book for this first check in. None other than the most popular, most likely to succeed girl from our high school, straight from the smart row. I've got Karen Kassner on the line.
I don't mean you to call them Karen for me. I see her on a regular basis.
You're idiots.
I did not know that it's only taken forty years with Jonathan Stuart Goldstein is finally friend of a friend of a real life popular girl. And you know Karen is really nice in real life.
The truth is, Mary, The truth is that anyone can learn math.
What you have is such a great way with people. They like you, they trust you.
She's calling me stupid. Over the next few weeks, I book more guests to encourage and inspire, guests like Omar Karashi, one of the best math students in our grade.
I really respect anyone who's trying to reinvent themselves write, I really adm that, and.
I feel like this my eulogy.
I even managed to track down none other than our old math teacher, Bernie the Gooch Goyach.
Oh, Hi, very close.
Hi, you remember mister.
Go Who doesn't remember mister Goych.
Everyone remembers the Gouch. The Gouch.
On the other hand, do you remember Jonathan from math class?
Who is that?
Who?
That's the me, the person on the who called you well, you know it's been it's been a while.
Yeah.
When I tell mister Goyach what Mary Clote is trying to do, he offers a story of his own.
In the high school.
My concentration level was not great either.
I wanted to become a hockey player.
Actually, mister Goach says that he decided to become a teacher only once he saw his hockey career was taking him nowhere. But now that he's retired, he's returned to his first love and plays in a recreational hockey league.
I played three times a week.
I just finished last week.
Wow, it's never too late to give it a chance, right. No, After Monsieo Gooyech gets off the phone, I review the lesson with Mary Clode. So what did we learn?
I really gotta get gash? Should I parked on the wrong side?
Crap?
We learned that I don't know where my gas tankers.
Mary Clode pulls out and loops around the gas pomp. If she understood math, she'd knowed that flipping the left side of her car to the right simply by looping around is mathematically impossible unless said loop. We're a Mobia strip, but there are no Mobia strip shaped roads in a Euclidean space like Canada.
Some intelligence can't be measured in the same way as others.
Oh fuck, I did it again, and they say math has no real world application?
Why by one, four, nine seven fists yes.
Because over the next several weeks, Mary Cloude continues to work on her assignments. At first, it's like high school all over again.
Yeah, this is gonna be flashback.
But with time, Mary Cloude grows confident enough to ask for help.
I don't know how to do it, you don't know it.
And when she does, Suzanne doesn't make her feel stupid. She explains things, so it's not long before Mary Cloude is getting the answers right.
Hundred yep. Wow, I'm very impressed.
Cool.
I never thought i'd live to see the day Mary Clode would call math cool. It's not an adjective she throws around lightly. I've only heard her say it about eating poutine, drinking whiskey, and listening to her favorite Canadian rock band, Blue Rodeo. So to rewarder for working so hard these past few months, I book a very special guest for our next check in a twelve time Juno Music Award winning and two thousand and nine Canadian Walk of Fame receiving very special guest. Honestly, this is a get.
I didn't think this was going to come through. Jim Cuddy of Blue Rodeo.
Oh hi, it's Jim Cutty here.
How did you swing that?
Hello? Mary Cook?
How are you I'm great.
How are you.
I'm very good.
Thank you.
As it turns out, it's not just Mary Cloude and my friendship that blossomed in math class. It was in a high school math class that the Canadian John Lennon, Blue Rote Video's Jim Cuddy first met his friend and future Blue Rodeo bandmate, the Canadian Paul McCartney, Greg Keeler.
That's true, No way, that's true. Greg had moved from Montreal and he came into our math class as a new kid. It's fun.
So if math didn't exist, Blue Rodeo wouldn't exist. You might say.
That might be stretching at Jonathan, but I guess you're right. I mean, you're right.
It is all about I'm trying to impress upon young Mary Cloude the importance of mathematics. Yeah, as for words of wisdom, the lyrics Jim Road for the band's hit single, The Canadian Hey Jude Try, which rocketed to number three on the Canadian Adult Contemporary chart, seemed particularly relevant to Marry cloude circumstance caught up in the moment I explode into song girl, You've got nothing but time, Oh you are a shining star. I wait for Jim to join
me in an impromptu duet. Oh you gotta try, Try, Try Jim. Jim, a consummate professional as well as a Canadian, graciously allows me to take the solo try. After my big finish, Jim Cuddy leaves Mary Clode with wise words.
They always make it through, you know, I mean, you will, you will, and you obviously have a good friend and Jonathan, that's that's helping you out. Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, thanks Johnny. My daughter Katie is here. She's a huge fan and she's great in math. Can she say hi to you?
Of course? Hi, Hi Katie? How you doing again?
How are you?
So you're watching the struggles.
Of your Mom's gonna learn.
That Usually I'm the one bothering Mary Clode. But a few weeks after my unassisted serenade, I get a call from her. She's finally gotten back a grade for the coursework. She needs at least a sixty to move on to the final exam, and.
That's what I got.
Okay, this is complicated because I don't want to low ball you and then make you feel like I don't have faith in you. But I don't want to high ball you and then make you feel as though you've let me down exactly. Okay, I am going to say, you know what, I'm gonna be optimistic here because I think you've been really working hard. I think Suzanne has had a positive IMPACT's great. I'm going to say, sixty percent.
You are such an assoule.
That's a pass, isn't you. I'm going to say you passed?
You really have no faith in me?
Is it higher?
Yeah?
Sixty five?
Keep going?
Sixty six? Okay, sixty seven, And she wrote like, I really think you're making a good effort here. No, come on, did you did you get like a good grade?
Did you?
Yes?
I did, Yes, I did.
Honestly, Perhaps you'd be happy to know I got in ninety five.
Oh that you got a ninety five percent?
Yes?
Oh my god, Mary, have you ever gotten to mark that high in math?
No? No, it's crazy.
No, no, no on any math test, like even if we went all the way back to kindergarten.
Probably not.
You know.
Itsu then told me that my tutoring session a couple of weeks ago.
What's that you told me I wanted for brides students and that I actually do understand math?
As Mary Clode tells me about her grade, about Suzanne's praise. There's genuine pride in her voice. It's wonderful to hear like.
I'm actually really kind of enjoying that.
I'm so glad. That's really great, shocking but true. With no more assignments to worry about, all Mary Clode has left to do is study for the exam. It seems like I'll be in Montreal in no time with a big bowl of poutine.
You keep forgetting the whiskey and whiskey okay, I'll get myself to the exams.
And you've gotten yourself to the Advertising break a voluntary public service that I provide out of the goodness of my heart and for money to companies, corporations and conglomerates. But only the good ones like Bonobos that sell products like well fitting Ya sweaters and Penguin socks, as opposed to not so good companies like Gimlet that only sell advertising space wrapped in a flimsy narrative, Oh Sweet Montreal.
As I walk past the fromageries, perfumeries and haw Key eries, I can't help it reflect on how far Mary Cloud has come these last five months. For the first time in her life. Mary Clode has done well in math, but she's had her tutor, Suzanne helping her along. Now she faces a much bigger challenge the final exam, and she's going to have to do it alone. Are you excited about the big Chester?
I'm excited for it to be over.
I'm over at mary clothes house this morning as she gets ready to leave for the exam. And you want to do some last minute cramming.
Yeah, I either know it or I don't.
Despite Mary Clode being too cool for adult education online schools, I can tell she's nervous every time I try to get us out the door so we can make it to the exams am on time.
She stalls, Oh, I have to make the children of smoothie.
Is that what you do each morning? Yes, it's very nice. Well, Mary Cloude makes the smoothie. I plug our destination into the GPS. When she finally finishes, we head out. Helen and Katie see us off. Good luck.
You're gonna do ry.
Thank you?
Just see calm. Easier said than done.
I mean maybe I'll get in there and I'll read all the questions. So I want the answer and not Annic.
I asked if Suzanne had any tips for staying calm during the test, Mary Cloude doesn't think so. But the mention of Suzanne's name reminds Mary Clode of something that happened during one of their last sessions.
Did I tell you that She told me I was dyslexic?
WHOA wait?
Yeah, and she because one time I did something and I was like, oh, I fucked that up. She goes, well, yeah, well that of course, I mean, you're dyslexing.
Susanne was a matter of fact about it. Certain Mary Clode must have already known, and as soon as Suzanne said it, it all clicked.
You know, when I meet a family and to make funeral arrangements, they verbally say their address.
At the postal code, and like, my brain just goes like.
Or if they tell me their home phone number, I can't write it down. I know, Like I have to enter payments, you know, at work, and I always screw up the numbers, Like my friend Mary Louis always like, yeah, I fixed it because you entered the numbers backwards. I also can't spell New French or English.
Mary, that's wild. You end up like looking back at your entire past differently. I think back to what Mary Clode told me about missyr spirit in saying she understood the math, that she was smart, but got the answers wrong, about the disconnect between how simple math seemed on the board, but how impossible it was to apply. Mary clothes problem wasn't a math problem after all? How do you get from point A to point B when you can't even keep the letters straight.
Upon an exemit?
Good luck, Mary, I believe in you. Mary Clode follows a woman down the carpeted hallway. She steps into a small room and looks back one more time, could you lease please? Then the exam room door closes and her test begins. The exam takes three hours, so in the meantime I borrow mary clothes car to get the poutine
and whiskey. Upon my return, I scout the best place in the vestibule to assume a squatting position, whiskey bottle proffered like a rolled up graduation diploma and scalding bowl of poutine balanced the top my head like a graduation cap. But before I can take a knee, Mary Clode appears.
I finished.
When did you finish?
Like ten minutes ago?
Are you kidding. I'm not sure if this is a good sign or a bad one. How did it go?
I'll see.
I show Mary Clode the whiskey. You want to have some now? Yes, I do, straight from the bottom.
Yes here.
I don't know whether the whiskey we're about to drink is victory whiskey or consolation whiskey. But maybe it doesn't matter. After all, Mary Clode made it this far. Maybe I had to get into the finish line kicking and screaming, but we crossed that finish line.
You had a hard time with all this.
I want to make a toast to you to getting from point A to point B. A big hug get get the mic against the scuffing sounds. I don't know why Mary Clodes put up with me for so many years, from the constant nagging to the bear hugging. I drive mary Clod crazy, I know that. But I'm also able to make her laugh through the good times, but through the bad times as well, especially through the bad times, and maybe that's why we've stayed friends. Or maybe I just know when to bring the whiskey.
That's really good, isn't it good? That's good?
It's like high school again, skipping class, sneaking booze. It feels like being kids, which at fifty is quite a thing. Uh oh uh oh, someone's coming. Security is coming. We gotta go.
That's that true.
Yea, yeah, yeah yeah, let's go. Keep moving here. It feels so much like being kids that I actually lose sight of the fact that the adult coming our way is at least twenty years my junior, and not a security guard at all, but just a normal guy who happens to be twice my size. Oh I thought a big guy like that with security. They're really nervous.
She is dead.
Oh you did it.
I did the tests.
Yes, do you feel relieved?
Yes, you have no idea. It's over.
Back at mary Clodes, Helen and Katie are waiting to congratulate their mom. She said she'd follow through, and she did, but Mary Clode isn't sure she even passed. It's an anxiety her daughters, who are so committed to school, just aren't familiar with.
I can't relate to them. I'm not gonna lie to you. I really can't. Like they work when they're tired, they work when they don't want to, Like I beg them to watch my own family with me or something, and they're like, no, I have to study, and I'm like, come on, come on, I'm just really not that motivated. But they have a motivation that I lack. I feel like, even as an adult, I lack it. You know.
As Mary Clode speaks, Helen tries to interrupt, I don't know.
I like, do you always say that, like, oh, I don't do things I don't want to do, But like that's not true at all. Like you do things you don't want to do every day. It's just not maybe it's not school, but it's other things.
You know.
It's like you worked hard at the store all those years. Like I'm sure you didn't want to like be there all the time.
Katie joins in too, like running, like she decided a couple of years ago she wanted to like get healthy and all that, and she has ran like every day for the past I don't know, five years or something. You know, she eats healthy, she works out.
Yeah, what else is something that she started and she's seen through.
I mean she raised us.
I mean yeah, we're always she always makes sure we have food. No, for real, you're always like making sure we have stuff to eat. We know, like wherever we're going, how we're getting home. Like there's never been a time where I'm like, oh, mom, just like forgot about me.
The most important commitment Mary Cloude made, she kept about A month later. I get word then Mary Clodes got the final exam back. It's Friday, so I phone up for one last check in. Mary Clode picks up and delivers the news.
I got a whopping fifty seven.
You're kidding.
My heart sinks. If only I'd pushed Mary Clode three percent.
Harder and it passes fifty.
Oh, oh, that's great, you made it.
I passed.
I thought sixty was a pass.
No, you have to get fifty on the exam, Like I guess the assignment. I think the assignments were worth fifty percent and the exam was worth fifty percent, So that's why you had to get at least fifty out of the math.
I don't know, I don't know.
Are you proud of me?
Honestly, I'm really I'm tempted to say a great many things, joky things, but in the end, I don't. I don't know what to say. I'm just it just makes me feel really happy.
Thanks friend. It means a lot to me.
Mary Cloude is happy she passed, but the thing she's most happy about is that today is Friday, and for the first time in months, she doesn't have to worry about math. She has the whole day to herself, and she knows just how she wants to spend it.
I'm so excited. I'm going to go shopping for the girl's birthday. Helen had her birthday, but we're having her party tomorrow with the family, and I have to go get the cake for both of them and a birthday presence for Katie. And then Katie is texting me.
Now that the fern entures returning to its goodwill home, now that the last month's rent is scheming with.
The damage that possible take this moment to to so.
If we meant him, if we tried, he felt around for far too.
From things that accidentally t.
This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Stevie Lane and me Jonathan Goldstein, along with Khalila Holt and Ba Parker. The show is edited by Jorge just Special thanks to Emily Condon, Alex Bloomberg, Lulu Miller, mime O'Donnell Nabielle Chullompot, Drew Zimbruski and Jackie Cohen. Bobby Lord mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellows, John K. Sampson, Michael Hurst, Edwin, Hailey Shaw, and Bobby Lord. Additional music credits can be
found on our website gimletmedia dot com slash Heavyweight. Our theme song is by the Weaker Thands courtesy of Epitaph Records, and our ad music is by Hailey Shaw. Follow us on Twitter at Heavyweight or email us at Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com to see photos from this week's episode, as well as all of our episodes this season. We can visit our show page on Spotify. This was our final episode of season four, but we're already starting to
look for stories for season five. So if you have one, email us at Heavyweight at gimletmedia dot com, and if you want to support the show, please, for the love of God and all that's holy, follow us for free on Spotify. Boy, am I thisty must be those pretzels? No, I don't think so, don't do that. Thanks for listening.
What's the name of your podcast?
You don't even know the name of my podcast, do you?
I want to say, weebles. What's it called?
You think that the name of my podcast is Weebles, like I weebel. But I don't fall down. You literally don't even know the name of my podcast.
I'm literally blanking unbelievable. I expect you to send me like T shirts or stickers in the male hats.
Yeah, maybe it'll be a good way for you to learn the name of my podcast.
I have no time to listen to podcasts, Okay, I'm very busy steadying math