An Embarrassing Phone Pas

Thursday, I took both boys to pick up their schedules for next year. The Pony is entering 6th grade, and leaves the security of Elementia, the only school he has ever known, for Basementia. He is a bit apprehensive. He wanted to carry a book into the school, but I made him put it back in T-Hoe and face the music. At first, he didn't want to take a tour of the building. He should know his way around, because it was just two years ago that I was stationed in Basementia every afternoon, and The Pony got off the bus there. Still, two years ago was 20% of his life, so maybe he really doesn't remember.

#1 and I persuaded The Pony to go downstairs and see his classrooms, but we couldn't get to his locker, what with it being in an area that was taped off due to wet floor wax. Nothing like cutting the sprucing-up duties until the last minute, by cracky! When we left, he seemed relieved. I have told him and told him that he will have to find bathroom time on his own, and that if he misses the bus, not to worry, because if he doesn't arrive at Newmentia, I will come looking for him. We found out that he has band 7th hour, which is in another building that shall ever after be called Sidementia. It will be a rush for him to get from Sidementia to the bus loading area after the bell. Those bus drivers don't let any grass grow under their tires. When the first one pulls out, they've got themselves a convoy.

I asked The Pony if he felt better about starting school in that building, after his little tour. He hesitated. "Yes. But maybe during Open House, somebody can show me where the band room is." Poor Pony. We overlooked the obvious.

#1 was rarin' to go pick up his schedule, even though he had gotten a copy during the first week of summer school, and a locker assigned next to his buddies, too. He didn't even want me to go in, but nature called, so I just walked past him to do my business. Since the Teacher Workroom was locked up tighter than the liquor cabinet during an AA convention, I went into the student bathroom. It's a maze, you know. No door, just a maze of concrete blocks to get into the stall and sink area. That maze is where I want to be during a tornado. Anyhoo...from my comfortable seat in the last handicap stall, I heard someone telling #1 where I was. In a school, everybody knows your business. He was waiting outside when I re-navigated the maze. Seems that he needed his social security number for the paperwork. Much like inmates at a federal penitentiary, our students are just a number, and we do head counts every 50 minutes.

While I was filling out that info, #1 stood at the office window to chat with his female cronies. That boy is never lacking for feminine attention. Just last week I discovered that he was texting a girl from basketball camp. We won't mention the girl whose number he got at the state bowling tournament in April. We left school to meet my mom and sister and niece for lunch. My timing is impeccable. Nobody ever has to wait on me. You could set your watch by me. Unless #1 has anything to do with it.

About two miles from Newmentia, #1 flipped out. "I don't have my phone! I think I left it on the counter by the office when I was talking." He was flustered. I simply told him to call the girls. That's WHY they were in the office, to answer the phones while the head honchoes were handing out schedules and parking permits and lockers. He called. "I hate that automated system!" You're preachin' to the choir, buddy. He finally reached the building of his choice, and asked the girls to look for his phone. Since he has three of them, (now down to two because his father is a mooch), the girls asked which one. Like any other type of phone laying there must not be his. "My iPhone!" The boy was frantic. I was none too happy myself. I had already made a U-turn and was headed back to Newmentia. This drama in real life was wreaking havoc with my schedule. The girls reported that there was no phone on the outer-office shelf.

#1 was busy searching his little corner of paradise, or as I call it, the passenger seat of my T-Hoe. It was nowhere to be found. He commanded The Pony to search the floor of the back seat area. "For your phone? I know you had it when you got in the car. You put it right there." #1 had searched the floor, the seat, the console, under my purse, the pockets on the door, his shorts pockets. No iPhone. I told him we would go back to Newmentia and he could look for himself. Then he spotted it. "Here it is!"

He had put it in my soft sunglasses case, right there by the cupholders. DUH! I made him call the office girls and tell them. He must have forgotten that I was right there. Because I heard him say, "Oh, it fell down by the seat." Indeed! I screamed out, "He stuck it in my glasses case!" That boy is so tech savvy. He was not even rattled. After ending his conversation, he told me, "You know that I covered up the speaker when you talked."

And he added, "That was an embarrassing phone pas."