So I have a friend who I really like. She’s a bit quirky, has her fair share of hang ups. But for the most part we get along really well. She is not somebody I would have chosen for a close friend, to begin with she is 20 years older than me, but our sons are best friends and over the years we have forged a sort of friendship that is a good, stable thing. She doesn’rt read Caloden, doesn’t even know the name of it, so I feel free to let go here.
And here is the thing: she is driving fucking nuts. Her son is going down the same path as Loren. It’s not the worst path in the world, but it’s not the best either. The boys are disruptive in class, they get kicked out from time to time. The two of them, along with another pal, have in the last four months, thrown rocks at the church, stolen three pairs of promotional earphones from a ski store, and gotten way too many mandatory study halls for their poor academic performances. The thing is this, my friend’s son is always just the poor innocent bystander in all of this mayhem. According to her, her boy is merely being led down the wrong path just to please his friends. So often do I have to hear about her saintly seed of offspring that I am close to the point of bursting. But here is the other thing, she just went through a vicious divorce, she is pretty much terminally ill and I understand that she needs to grasp on to something.
Today was a particualry rough one with her. She called me up in a huff telling me that she had found a hidden pink slip in her son’s backpack because he was kicked out of an all school assembly last Friday. She then went on to inform me that my son had been kicked out of the same assembly. I hit the roof, saw red, etc. Loren and I have been discussing the many, many reasons that he must tow the line, buck up, get his shit together, etc. I was so pissed that I was ready to go out and buy Loren blue Dockers and a blue polo shirt so that he could begin attending St. Stephen’s Academy by Wednesday.
Turns out Loren was not kicked out of that assembly. Yes, her son was. Not mine. And so in my most mature way, I have this to say, ” HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!!!!!!”
Old Stuff
Blogroll
:snort:
schadenfreude
I had to look that one up on Google.
Schadenfreude: Etymology: German, from Schaden damage + Freude joy
: enjoyment obtained from the troubles of others.
I love a word that translates to joy damage.
I have a neighbor who’s like that. No matter what it is, she maintains her little darlings couldn’t have possibly have done it.
Her little darlings are well on the way to becoming thugs.
Possibly, so is Rebecca, but at least I don’t hide my head in the sand.
Latest school bus suspension was 3 days for doing jumping jacks in front of the bus and then slapping the back of the bus as it was pulling out.
Grounded – one more time.
There’s nothing more annoying than parents who hide their heads in the sand. I’ll never forget this boy I tutored in high school – he had a bad football injury that took a year or two to rehab from, and they blamed everything (including his criminal tendencies) on that football injury.
Hang in there!
John Kelly is Perfect. He has never been kicked out of anything. He has never stolen anything and he has never used profanity. Sometimes, when he is munching on the boob, though, he starts to look too much like my dad. Something about his moth position or the way he furrows his brow. he has to stop that altogether. But besides that he is Perfect.
I don’t know how you hang in there with this friendship without calling her on her delusions about her kid. It would take everything I had not to do it.
Then again, you said you really like her otherwise. And you also said that she’s ill and going through a rough time. In that case decorum would trump righteousness. To her face anyway!
Nanny, nanny, boo, boo!
Oh man, you are such a better person than I. I wouldn’t really care about her divorce, illness, whatever,if it was between that and demoninzing my kid.
And I’d have probably neenered her right in her smug, self-righteous face over the pink slip and lack thereof.