long division

This story probably reveals something interesting about me. I just have no idea what it is...

I'll start with some (mostly irrelevant) background info:
In Dec. 1961 we moved from St. Louis to Philadelphia. My most vivid memory of the road trip was the turnpike through Western Pennsylvania. My retriever (aptly named Bozo) was 'having issues' with the tunnels - he barked and bounced all over the interior of the car jumping back and forth between the front and rear seats all the way through. I thought it was freaking hilarious. My father (who was trying to drive) was not amused. (We're talking some REALLY long tunnels.) I remember spending New Years Eve 61/62 in the George Washington Motor Lodge in Valley Forge before moving to a Marriott Hotel the next day. (We lived in the Marriott for a month while we got our new house set up - that was cool.)

I assure you I will get to the long division story eventually, but I just remembered something vaguely related (Have I mentioned that I'm an associative thinker?):
My new school was Waldron Academy in Merion, PA. In the corner of the Waldron gym there was a stairwell (inside a cinder-block structure) that jutted out pretty close to the edge of the basketball court. One day during basketball practice the coach had us practicing running backwards. I was at the very end of the line, the coach wasn't paying attention and I ran into the edge of the stairwell and got knocked silly.
Fast forward to 2001 - I was flipping channels and I happened across a scene filmed in a school gym that looked REALLY familiar to me - then I recognized the Waldron emblem. My eyes immediately went to that @#$!! stairwell and there was a HUGE foam pad covering the corner! I'm sitting there thinking "@#$@#$@!!! WHY wasn't that pad there when I knocked the s!!t out of myself back in 1963????" BTW - the movie was 'Wide Awake' with Rosie O'Donnell playing a nun. She's not nearly scary enough to pass for a nun. But I digress...

So here's the actual story:
I arrived at Waldron halfway through the the 3rd grade. By then they were already doing long division and I was lost.
Now, I could have just told Sister Mary WhateverHerNameWas that my prior school had not covered long division yet and ask her to show me. Or I could have asked my parents or sister to explain it to me. But instead I decided to 'wing it'. And within a couple of days I had figured out how to 'guessimate' the answers, and since we had to show our work I'd just write some random numbers below the problem so it would look like I knew what I was doing.

Believe it or not I got away with that for 2 years. Seriously! It wasn't until midway through the fifth grade that I finally got a remainder wrong on a test and the teacher checked my 'work' and realized it was total gibberish. She called me up, pointed at the problem and said "Can you explain this?" I said "Yes. I don't know how to do long division." Now, to fully appreciate the expression on her face you have to be aware that I was an honor student and ranked 3rd in the class in math. It was as if she had seen a UFO...
As one might expect, I had pretty much figured out how to do long division by then - I was just doing it in my head. Turns out that it's a lot easier when you write it down :-)

Now, my initial reluctance to ask for help might have been reasonable. I was afraid people would think I was stupid, or might laugh at me - like when I was 3 years old and my Dad was on a business trip and my Mom and Sis put a dress and wig and makeup on me and call me Felicia. But that's another story - one that I shall never mention again :-)
But how can you explain keeping it up for 2 years?? That's got to be a world record for either stubbornness or stupidity. I'm not sure which (probably a bit of both)...

I've always suspected that I'm either a really smart dumb*ss or a really dumb smart*ss - I've just never been able to figure out which...