I am calling Mommy.

 I have never been much of a test taker.

I am not really stupid, my dear sweet Mama would always tell me that I was not the dumbest person in the world, that was my cousin Clem, and just hope he don't die..

Actually for most of my schooling I did quite well but never really knew how I passed into the next grade since I tended to freeze up at test time.

I eventually finished the eighth grade right before my wedding day.  Good thing or the honeymoon would take place in summer school.

I remember a typing class in high school where to pass the final exam I had to be able to type a minimum of 28 words per minute.

I was doing great up until the final exam when i scored a negative 14 per minute.

I hardly formed any words but I had symbols and numbers mixed into the sentences.

A monkey could type Shakespeare faster than I could complete a paragraph. 

That's how bad I was.

This brings me to this past weekend when the newspaper I work for gave me a final notice that I had exactly one week to complete the online course from the HR department on how to talk nice to my fellow coworkers without causing them to tear-up.

This was a mandatory test for us all and I didn't think it was meant for me because after all, I mostly work alone and from home.

I kept forwarding it to my spam folder but there it was, it popped up again telling me to get on it.

I don't know how they were able to get it into my inbox when it should have gone directly to spam.

I think my wife had something to do with it.

Well there I was taking the course and it was all the usual, don't say this, don't touch that, address them as they want to be called (which is a problem because I can't call my best friend Jimmy by his nickname "Dorkey-Porky"), I need to address him now as James or he's telling on me.

There are so many rules and regulations now I almost have to bring along a lawyer while I work to slap me on the hand when I misbehave.

In my youth we all insulted one another and if the insultee didn't like it he'd punch the insulter in the nose.  If he wasn't tough enough he'd bring along a brother or friend to help.

You never told on him to his mother or you'd be called a sissy, a term that now will get you a visit to HR with a severe reprimand, suspension or a trip to the unemployment line and no pizza on pizza day.

HR has become the mommies of the workforce.

So at the end of the course you must pass by answering 5 questions, 4 are multiple choice and 1 is true-false.

If you fail to get the correct answer you are sent back to the video that has that section to view it again and get the correct answer.

So Question number 1 appears and I thought "Well this is an easy one". I was wrong...back to the video again.

I come back and wouldn't you know it, I gave the same answer as before.

Back to the video.

This went on for quite some time as I couldn't recall what was my prior answer...I only had 4 choices and kept screwing it up.

I thought maybe if I wrote down the answer I wouldn't repeat this but I would have to go into another room to get pen and paper and the lay-z-boy was just to comfortable to make me move.

Needless to say it took me almost 3 hours that day, and that was day one.

I returned the next day to finish the test. I got 2 answers right on day one, 3 more to go.

I know this was serious as my HR department must have been monitoring my efforts.  I kept getting emails from them asking if it was really me taking this test or did one of my youngins get hold of my tablet.

They even sent one of those 12 block puzzles where you had to check off the blocks that had a traffic light or bicycle or something. to prove you were not a robot.

After 8 attempts they sent me an easy one; check all boxes with the color blue.  All 12 had blue so I finally was allowed in.

Well I had 3 questions to go and somehow I got the next one correct on the first try.

They immediately emailed me a gold star that said attaboy...keep going.

Wouldn't you know it the next question was the true-false one.

Now just think about this, if I got it wrong and had to go back to the video, I could easily get it right the second time...correct?

Nope, But I was able to get it correct after another 4 attempts.

Just then the phone rang and it was Chris, the HR department head who was either a cis female or cis male, or a trans, I couldn't tell by the husky voice. 

Chris must have been using the pronoun "they" because Chris kept asking if I was really an employee because "they" wanted to know.

I assured Chris I would complete the course within the next 2 hours since I had only one more multiple choice question to answer.

So I eventually finished and they emailed me my certificate of completion.

Right after that my Mama called.  I was afraid she was going to tell me my cousin Clem died but she just wanted to talk.

I told her all about the events of the day.

After we hung up she called Chris and gave him/her/they the whatfor.

Chris called me back and called me a sissy.

Guess what, Chris now gets no pizza on pizza day.