In Case Of Emergency, Dial All Of Your Relatives.

This one is going to be a rant because there is no other way around it. And sometimes that's what a blog needs to be - a place for me to vent my frustrations so that I don't do anything I'd later regret.

About a year and a half ago, I got a call from my son at school. Mr. Drama Queen. He calmly told me that he might have broken his arm at recess. Well, oh, my hell! Why was he the one calling me instead of a school administrator? I grabbed my keys and hit the road to rescue my kid. I got there and the school office is buzzing with activity, but none of it is over my son. The secretaries are all answering the phones and making chit-chat with other moms and teachers in the office, and my son with the possibly broken arm is sitting in a chair by himself with his arm cradled in his good hand.

Long story short - he was fine. Not a thing wrong with him. He bumped his arm a little and was sent to the office, likely because of the amount of fuss he was making. But let me tell you this - I was livid that those secretaries allowed him to call me and tell me that he might have a broken bone. Perhaps if anyone had been paying attention when he called or if they were using the space inside their heads for things besides storage of dirty gossip information, they may have caught on to the fact that my kid nearly gave me a heart attack.

Let's fast forward about three months to the next phone call from Cameron. He was really, really sick this time and needed to come home. Really and truly! I promise, Mom! Well, okay, I'll just wake up the two babies from their naps, load them plus Drew into the wagon and drag it up a snow covered hill for a half mile to come get him. Of course, as soon as I got Cameron home he was magically healed.

The next time Cameron called I was smart enough to make him let me speak to a secretary. I asked her about his condition and she confirmed that he was coughing pretty badly and should probably be picked up. So up the hill through the snow we went to get Cameron, who gave a total of one hacking cough during the remainder of the day. Starting to feel like those secretaries just don't want my kid in school. So I kept him home for two more days, just to be sure that he wasn't going to infect any of the other students with Nothing Disease. I place fair blame on Cameron for faking, but some of the blame should go on the women working in the office who should know when to actually think about and properly react to what's happening right in front of them.

Not long after that, Cameron called home again and was near death for the third time. I asked to speak to a secretary again and told her that our new rules were that Cameron either had to have a fever or had to have thrown up in front of at least one witness if he wanted to come home. Lacking that necessary testimony, I asked her if she had a thermometer to take his temperature with. She replied that, yes, they did and proceeded to check him and find that he was within normal range. Back to class he went.

What the heck happened to school nurses? Where are the sick rooms where you could lay down on a cot covered with crinkly paper until you felt better? I have a great idea! - Lets just let the kids call their parents once a week with symptoms of a major disease or life threatening injury! It'll do wonders for their education!

Today was the best though. This time it was gold medal at the Olympics, first prize at the county fair, promotion at work with accompanying ten percent raise kind of stuff. This one is the winner.

We all remember Cameron's head injury from last week, right? The one that bled a lot but stopped with a little pressure and did not need stitches or prayers or anything like that? Well, apparently some girl in his class, who obviously does not have brothers, hollered that Cameron's head was bleeding, so the teacher sent him to the office to get it taken care of.

You know what the office does? They call me, (I was vacuuming my car and did not hear my phone), they called Andrew, (also vacuuming), they called my mother, (no answer), they called my grandfather, my father, my sister, and finally, my aunt, bless her heart. She immediately jumped in her truck and drove fifteen miles to pick up my son from school. Meanwhile, I check my phone and see that I have two missed calls from the school and so I call them right back. The woman on the other end of the line tells me that Cameron's head is bleeding and someone ought to come look at it, but Aunt Lisa is already on her way to get him.

Let's all take a deep breath here. It's a little cut. He probably picked or scratched at the scab and made it bleed a little. No big deal. But now Aunt Lisa is on her way, so I have to come intervene. I met Lisa in the parking lot and we chatted for a while, because I'm fully aware that there is not an emergency issue going on inside, and then she went home and I went in to tell the office personnel where to stick it.

Inside the office, I find Cameron sitting on that same chair that he sat in with his not-even-close-to-being-broken arm all those months ago, and this time, with no bleeding head. Maybe it did bleed for a second earlier, but he's not even holding a tissue or anything with which to stem the flow, so it can't have been that bad. And again, no one is paying any attention to the kid with the supposed head injury. I guess that in our day and age with law suits over anything and everything, they are required to play it safe and call me, but we're talking about a picked scab here.

I choked back all the swear words that were crawling up my throat and asked if they had any first-aid supplies. Of course they did! (They why in the name of Florence Nightingale didn't they put them to use??) Any gauze? "Of course! Let me just find it.... Nope, probably not in this box labeled "Sterile Gauze Pads", it must be something else..." I had to explain to this secretary how to read a box label and what gauze was. I bandaged his not bleeding head myself and sent him back to class. Completely infuriated that they would call everyone in the valley who shared some of my DNA to come to the aid of my perfectly healthy and well child, I decided that it was not the moment to confront their stupidity and walked out of the office taking deep, calming breaths.

These are the people responsible for the care and education of my children. But not for long.

End rant.