It All Goes Downhill From Here....

I got one of "those" phone calls today from Padawan's school.  You know, one of the "Your kid bleeped up" calls.  It sort of took me by surprise because Padawan usually doesn't trend toward the criminal element. Nevertheless...today he got caught red handed.


"And Mrs. Drug," the secretary informed me, "this is the second offense....we had to confiscate..."

DUN DUN DUNNNNNN....

A better mom than me would have no idea what is being pictured here.

At this point I braced myself, mentally running through a list of interventions.   Where do we go from here? His Youth Pastor?  Military school? Maury?

What exactly did he do?  I asked the secretary, preparing myself for the worst.

"He was listening to MUSIC," she told me.  "On his PHONE."

Oh Dear Lord, soon he'll be moving his HIPS to the beat!

Now, don't think that I'm implying the school's rules are insignificant   On the contrary, I fully understand the need to curtail cell phone use during school hours. Further, I would even support a rule banning ALL cell phone use during school hours (which is stricter than the school's current policy, actually), however, this story is less about the rules, and more about what happened AFTER the phone was confiscated.

"Mrs Drug?" the secretary continued, "you or your husband will have to come to the school office to pick it up. On the second offense we will only release the confiscated property to the student's parents."

So off to the school we drove.

When we arrived in the office the secretary eyed Mr. Drug warily.  It was actually sort of, well, bizarre.  He's a very tall man, and sometimes he scares people. This sometimes comes in handy in his line of work.. still, Mrs. Secretary's glare was bordering on....contempt?  Hmm.

Once we'd procured the confiscated property and were safely back in the car, I flipped the cell phone on.  I did this mostly with the intention of snooping through Padawan's text messages.  I thought maybe there'd be some scintillating middle school drama in there. But what greeted me was a notification that said

12 MISSED CALLS.

Wow, Padawan must be some kind of sugar daddy.  Twelve missed calls?  In one morning?  Really?

"What do you think about this Mr. Drug?" I asked.  "Why so many calls during school hours?"

"I'm guessing his friends were calling his phone to annoy the office staff," Mr Drug casually replied.  "That's what I'd do if they took my phone away."

I suppose the fact that Mr. Drug's mind works like that of a 13 year old boy shouldn't surprise me.  But I still  wasn't following the reasoning.  And additionally, I wondered how effective the middle school discipline policies were if students were using cell phones during school hours, to call cell phones that had been confiscated.

So, I sat there contemplating and contemplating, and then I decided to call Padawan's phone myself.  Call it a mom instinct...

AHA!!

Now, I'm sure working in a middle school office can be...challenging.  I'm also sure that most schools aren't bastions of conservative leaning politics.  Also, the fact that Mr. Drug sauntered in wearing this jacket, probably didn't help Mrs. Secretary's mood any:

Hey we voted for the last bond issue!

Obviously Padawan is going to need to think about what he did, and why it was wrong to A) Listen to music on his phone at school, and then B). Annoy the office staff by having his friends spam call the phone triggering an intensely provocative and obnoxious ring tone.

Still, I can't help but think all the better moms out there wouldn't have laughed just a teeny bit.

Or maybe that's why Mr. Drug and I get along so well....sometimes you just find the right match maturity wise, ya know?

Hey, I never claimed to be the better mom.