Today I spent the good part of a morning dealing with a young man. He is almost 15 years old and is in his second tour through the 8th grade. His grades are almost all failing again. He was sent to me because he literally could not stay awake in P.E. class. I found him dozing in a chair in our outer office. When I brought him into my office he was snoozing away while I looked up his information on the computer. He awoke long enough to tell me that he'd just had a few hours sleep the night before. His mom told me that she had him in bed by 9:00 and up at 6:30. So what was the deal?

I took him for a walk around the building to wake him up. During our walk he confessed to slipping out of the house after his mom fell asleep and heading to a friend's house for a party. He also confessed to consuming a fair amount of beer at this party. I asked him if he had smoked any weed and he just kinda smiled and shrugged. The truth comes out...he had a hangover! Our ROTC instructor, overhearing this, informed me that "hair of the dog" was the best hangover cure. I told him I didn't think we could get by with that one!

I informed his mother of the information of the night's partying and she burst into tears. She sobbed on the phone about how difficult her life was and how now she couldn't even sleep for fear of her son slipping out. She asked for some suggestions and I gave her a few (first: get this kid a urinalysis done now!). At one point she opined to me that I just didn't understand how difficult it was to raise a kid with disabilities. Au contraire mademoiselle! I gave her a synopsis of my situation with Patrick...I do understand.

The conversation streched on and on. She wrote down all my suggestions about how to proceed. She promised to come meet with me in the next few days and to set up meetings with the teachers.

Then she wanted to know more about my son. I was uncomfortable giving much detail, so I once again just sketched out the situation. She said, "you're a single dad. There's no wife there helping you"? I told her no. The conversation rambled on some more. Then she giggled and said, "do you have a girlfriend"? Not really, I replied. She purred, "I'll bet your girlfriends just love your voice. Its so deep and warm. I like hearing your voice". Ahem. Shuffle in seat. This conversation is becoming interesting if perhaps a bit inappopriate! Being the coward..err, professional..that I am, I steered the conversation back to safer ground and wished her well. She called back twice more to ask questions and have more conversation.

Add to that a young man who swore that he said, "fluck you" instead of "fuck you". That makes it so much better I told him. Then there was the saggy-pants guy who required four plastic ties from my desk to keep his pants from falling off his ass. There were the two girls who couldn't seem to stop calling each other "hos". Can't forget the boy who ran his hand under the girl's skirt, got slapped for it, wrote her a note talking about how "I like feeling you up" and "Sex is on the way". He denied the whole thing until I pulled his own note out of my pocket and dangled it at him.

I love my job.

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