Boy glues hand to bed to avoid school

I can relate.

I was fascinated with television when I was around 11 or 12. We had lived in England and television programming over there wasn't much of a draw. We had an old TV that wasn't all that great to begin with so even if they had happened to have any fun kids shows it wouldn't have been easy to watch them on the small screen.

When we moved back to the states we got a bigger, color television. The cartoons were cool. The early morning programs were fantastic compared to what I'd had before.

I'd stand in the door, half in, half out, watching the television and watching for the bus. Now we lived partway down a fairly large hill. When the bus would top the hill, I'd have to turn off the TV, grab my books and lunch box, lock the door and scoot across the street and up about three or four houses to catch the bus.

As you can imagine, I missed the bus a number of times.

We lived quite some distance from the grade school, really too long to think about walking. But walk I did. There was no way I was calling my Mom to come home from work (if she'd already left) to take me to school.

I cut school one day simply because one of my favorite movies was going to be on during the day. I was "sick." I curled up on the sofa and watched... gee, what was the name of the movie? It was the one where the guy met a little girl. Each time he'd see her she was older. He didn't figure it out until she was grown. Turned out she'd died in some sort of accident (hotel fire? circus fire?). He tried to stop her from dying again or something. I think her name was Jenny?

I haven't thought about that movie in umpteen years. It's going to drive me nuts until I remember the name! But I would have glued my hand to the couch to be able to watch it. Of course, we didn't have anything but school glue, so I doubt it would have done the trick.

Here's the story that sparked those memories:

MEXICO CITY - A 10-year-old Mexican boy dreaded returning to school after Christmas break so much that he glued his hand to his bed. Sandra Palacios spent nearly two hours Monday morning trying to free her son Diego's hand with water, oil and nail polish remover before calling authorities, police chief Jorge Camacho told The Associated Press from outside the northern city of Monterrey.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080108/ap_on_fe_st/mexico_hand_glued