In which I terrorize the office staff of my son’s school

I blame it on revisions. When you’re working nonstop for a month on rewriting your novel for the third time, you get testy. I’d told the bow-tied one that I’d have the manuscript to him today, which means that in the last week I showered approximately twice.

So I wasn’t happy yesterday when son number 1, code name Gaston, called and told me he forgot his tennis shoes. He asked if I could bring them so he could participate in football practice. I nearly told him, “Forget it. Just skip practice and come home with the rest of the carpool.”

I didn’t want to take forty minutes out of my work day (twenty minutes there, twenty minutes back) to bring them to him. The deadline was looming and I still had quite a few of the bow-tied ones 407 comments to go through. Instead, I gave myself a pep talk about being a good mother (see last blog) and told him I’d try to get them to him. First I called around to the other carpool mothers in the neighborhood to see if they could bring up Gaston’s shoes when they picked up the other kids. Four phone calls later I found out that carpool turn fell to one of the fathers, who picked up the kids on his way home from work. So that wouldn’t work.

I got in the car, unshowered and covered in cat hair. (One of the cats feels it’s her duty to lie on my chest while I write.)I brought the shoes to the school’s front desk, explained the situation, and asked if they could give them to Gaston.

Imagine my surprise when Gaston came home with the carpool kids instead of staying for football practice. “What the heck are you doing home after I spent forty minutes to bring you your shoes!” I said lovingly. Because that is the type of mother I am. (see last blog)

“You didn’t bring me my shoes,” Gaston said.

“I gave them to the front office and they said they’d give them to you,” I said.

“They didn’t,” he said.

I called the school and left a message for the front desk. Which is probably something I shouldn’t do—leave messages when I’m angry. When you do that, you have to worry that your message is being endlessly replayed while people mimic you and do gargoyle impersonations. Not that I’m saying the office staff did this. But just, you know.

Anyway, the secretary called me this morning and apologized. She said she had called Gaston’s teacher and told him to send Gaston up to get his shoes. Apparently the teacher hadn’t passed along the message.

“Didn’t you notice that he never picked up his shoes?” I asked. Gaston doesn’t have small feet. He wears a size twelve.

“Yes,” she said. “So we sent his shoes to football practice with one of the other mothers.”

Which would have been nice if Gaston had gone to football practice, but he hadn’t because he had no shoes.

I pointed that out to the secretary, and then we hung up. That was the phone call.

Today when my husband came home he said, “I think the office staff is afraid of you now.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked. I had sent off my manuscript, showered, cleaned the downstairs, went to the grocery store to pick up frosting, baked a cake, and taken seven junior high kids to the movies for a party. I was back to loving mother mode. (See last blog.)

“The school didn’t know what happened to Gaston’s shoes after they were sent to football practice,” my husband said, “so they went out and bought him new ones.”

Oh.

Now I feel terrible. I suppose the office staff thought after I called to complain because I had to drive forty minutes to deliver the shoes and they didn’t give them to him, there was no way they were calling me to break the news that Gaston once again didn’t have shoes for football practice, and they didn’t know what had happened to them.

“The whole school knows about it,” Gaston told me with irritation. “The football coach came up to me and asked me what the shoe problem was.”

Turns out one of the football carpool kids had taken them home last night and he’d forgotten to bring them back to school today.

We have them back now, along with new shoes that the office lady bought. I really do feel bad about it. I told Gaston to ask the secretary how much they cost so I can repay her.

On the bright side, probably no one at that school will ask me to volunteer for the PTO.

16 comments

  1. Kristi Stevens
    May 22, 2009 at 10:50 pm

    That was hilarious. One of your best blog entries yet!

  2. Janette Rallison
    May 22, 2009 at 10:56 pm

    Yes, I’m just doing my best to bring humor to others. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

  3. azang
    May 23, 2009 at 12:28 am

    Now you’re looking at the bright side, this will totally work to your advantage re: the PTO thing. And no one will glare at you, they always smile when they think you’re nuts. (I know from experience!)

  4. Krista Darrach
    May 23, 2009 at 12:34 am

    Priceless. I love it.
    I must always give myself time to process. My family knows this…when in a certain mode (revisions would do it) no one should spring things on me. (I wish this wasn’t the case, but it is)
    I can’t believe they went out and bought shoes…Although I’ve been on the opposite end of having to be the bearer of bad news- after a “situation”…and I can understand purchasing the shoes.
    Thanks for sharing!
    ~Krista

  5. Valerie Ipson
    May 23, 2009 at 12:36 am

    I hate when things like that happen…you try to do a simple thing and it somehow takes on a life of its own.

  6. Danyelle
    May 23, 2009 at 6:32 am

    *grin*

    Look at all the trouble you saved them and yourself with the whole PTO stuff. 😉

  7. Asenath
    May 23, 2009 at 11:32 am

    hahaha! maybe Gaston can just leave a pair of shoes at school now.

    it was nice of the office staff to try and redeem themselves.

    also, do I have a codename?

  8. Melinda
    May 23, 2009 at 2:31 pm

    Love this. Especially the punch line at the end.

  9. Janette Rallison
    May 23, 2009 at 7:46 pm

    It is hard for you to have a code name besides the one you use for commenting on my blog. (And just where did you come up with that name–is it Egyptian or Hebrew–I forget?) But you are code name Serena after your love of certain Sailor Moon characters.

    I think all my children should have cartoon character personas.

  10. Nancy Campbell Allen
    May 23, 2009 at 11:12 pm

    I am laughing! That’s so funny, and I can so relate. It’s 20 mins each way to my kids’ schools too, and I HATE the phone calls saying they’ve forgotten something vital.

    Great post.

  11. Lisa
    May 24, 2009 at 12:38 am

    I hate it when the school office takes an hour to two hours to get things to you! Or when the teachers don’t tell you the office called for ten minuets, even though you know that they did.

    Ok i’m done ranting.

  12. Jane
    May 24, 2009 at 12:06 pm

    Hahaha. Oh my. I always feel so bad for school staff, all those parents trying to be good parents calling and yelling at them.

  13. Stephanie Black
    May 24, 2009 at 5:15 pm

    Well, I know I’m certainly scared of you, Janette! 🙂

  14. Hannah
    May 25, 2009 at 1:43 pm

    Somehow, I see this episode working itself into one of your books. 🙂

  15. Rachelle
    May 25, 2009 at 10:07 pm

    I think I remember you saying before that you had an arsenal of embarrassing moments to use in your writing. This sounds like a great tidbit! 🙂
    I would be pretty ticked too!
    I posted info about my new Ribbon Box on my blog, it’s so neat! If you’d like to see details, please stop by!

  16. The Golfing Librarian
    May 26, 2009 at 11:36 am

    Another masterful post! (Hey…an appropriate AND on topic comment! 4 to go! 😉

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