Had a little scare yesterday. In trying to decide whether or not to attend the open house at the Tall Kid’s high school yesterday, I pulled up his online gradebook…and choked on my yogurt. It wasn’t even a spoonful with fruit chunks in it, so you know it wasn’t easy to choke on that.

TK had a 58% in Honors Algebra II.

If you’ve been here any amount of time, you can see why my yogurt almost killed me, along with the instant hyperventilation. And through the dizziness caused by the lack of oxygen to my brain, I heard the sound of his future being flushed down the toilet.

(Melodramatic? Me? Ha.)

I spent the day frazzled by the anxiety. How did this happen? Why didn’t the teacher reach out to me? And, ohmigod, Mr S was going to take TK’s iPod Touch away and the child would have nothing better to do than talk to me about politics and the state of the universe.

Finally, at 2:50, Mr. Failing Math walked through the door.

Me: How was your day?
TK: Fine.
Me: Anything interesting going on?
TK: Nope.
Me: How about you failing Algebra 2, is that interesting?

So he gives me The Look. The Look he inherited from his father that translates to “why do I waste my time with you, you useless twit”.

TK: I’m not failing Algebra.

So I open the Macbook and he comes right over because he knows I’m pulling up the online gradebook.

He has a 95%.

Me: I swear to God you were failing math this morning.
TK: (The Look again). Sure, Mom.
Me: Honest! It said you were missing an assignment. You had a 58.64. I even wrote it down.
TK: Oh, wait. My teacher said she accidentally gave my paper to a kid who didn’t do his or something. She said she’d straighten it out today.

I lost ten years off my life…for nothing.