Welfareloser's Blog

i don’t know if every parent goes through this, or if it’s just me, but when the phone rings, and the caller id shows that it’s one of the kids’ schools, i freak. kinda like “innocent until proven guilty,” any call from the school is “biblical catastrophe until proven benign.”

and they always seem to be masters of NOT GETTING TO THE FUCKING POINT. for example, i got a pre-recorded, auto-dial-every-parent-in-the-district call on wednesday, saying that 5 district schools were “on lockdown,” due to “an incident that occured” in a nearby park. this was “just a precaution.”

umm. okay. first off, i’m goign to find out what the fucking incident was. it’s not like they’re sparing me the details; they’re just forcing me to waste time getting them. secondly, do you REALLY think you’re preventing panic? because trust me, no matter what the “incident” was, what i’m imagining is worse. what the fuck could be happening in a park near a school that would cause them to lock up the kids? well, someone shooting at kids. in this case, it was a professor who had been fixing grades for sexual favors was seen sitting in his truck near the park with a rifle (and he still hasn’t been located.) so, you know what? yeah, that’s scary, but crazy dude disappearing with a gun is less scary than the crazy dude USING his gun that i was imagining.

so, friday, 10:15 AM, i get a call from the school. the secretary proceeds to not get to the point. after asking if she was speaking to mrs. loser, asking me how i’m doing today (fine until you called!), she tells me that SpazMonkey needs to be picked up because he has a temperature of 101.2.

i believe i’ve mentioned before that you can tell my kids are sick because they become screamy. i’m assuming that’s what his teacher was politely communicating when i picked him up and she said he “just wasn’t himself this morning.”

he seemed fine to me, running his mouth about a picture he was coloring in the nurse’s office, smiling and waving goodbye to everyone. i was about to wonder if they had taken his temperature rectally after having him run a few laps around the playground, when he suddenly stopped dead at the door of the van.

SM: I DON’T WANNA GO HOME. I WANNA GO TO SCHOOL.
me: but you have a fever.
SM: NO I DON’T I HAVE A SCHOOL.
me: a fever is when your body is too hot. your body is too hot from germs-
SM: I’M NOT SICK!
me: -and if you stay at school you will give the germs to other kids and make them sick too, so you have to come home now.

and then he revealed that he was, in fact, quite sick. at top volume. for a good 20 minutes. i stopped at panera to get a takeout lunch, and, as usually happens when one of my kids speaks in public, he had the entire restaurant of retirees laughing their butts off with his monotone rant. it went a little something like this:

I’M NOT SICK I DON’T HAVE GERMS I DON’T WANT YOU I WANNA GO TO SCHOOOOOOOOOOOL HEY WHAT DOES THAT WORD SPELL I DON’T LIKE THIS STORE DO YOU HEAR ME MOM I’M NOT SICK TAKE ME BACK TO SCHOOL MY BODY IS NOT TOO HOT I NEED ICE AND YOU TAKE ME BACK TO SCHOOL I DON’T WANT YOU I WANT MY BROTHERS I DON’T WANT A MUFFIN TAKE ME OUT OF THIS STORE I WANT TO PLAY AT RECESS I NEED A PAPER TISSUE MY BOOGERS ARE FALLING OUT OF MY NOSE DOES THIS STORE HAVE PAPER TISSUES MY SCHOOL HAS PAPER TISSUES I WANNA GO BACK TO SCHOOL NOW WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

he calmed down by the time we walked out of panera. okay, i thought that kid talked a lot when he’s with his brothers. but he actually does stop for a breath now and then to let them talk, too. when it’s jsut him? holy crap, he didn’t shut up all day. even when he sat down to draw stuff, he had a raging monologue about what he was drawing and why. he asked me to fix the xbox for him – little turd decided to try out some softmodding a few weeks ago and erased the damned operating system – and as i sat down to the computer to try that, he noticed the scanner. and asked what it was for. then asked me to scan his artwork. then talked about how awesome it was to have his artwork on the computer. then asked me why i didn’t have the xbox fixed yet…

yep. so, here we have “DINOSAUR FIGHT”

“YOU AT YOUR COMPUTER MOM!”

“THE INSTRUCTIONS FOR FIXING THE XBOX” (note that this involves a chainsaw and an indiana jones hat.)

“THE MAP TO FIXING THE XBOX”

then IAlsoHaveADream emailed: I think I could actually hear SpazMonkey spouting off that entire “I want to go back to school” rant. And if it makes you feel any better, I drew you a picture too. You can share it with him.

i did share it with him, and the visual aid made him much more impressed with IAlsoHaveADream’s new job.

SM: I THOUGHT YOU SAID HIS WORK WAS WRITING TO PEOPLE TO ASK THEM FOR MONEY.
me: yep.
SM: THAT’S A AWESOME WORK!