Why is YOUR Time More Valuable Than Mine?!

There are few things in life that piss me off more than having my time wasted. Time is the most expensive thing we spend that cannot be refunded. My time is very valuable to me. I hate having it wasted, especially when it is through no fault of my own.

Today, two instances occurred in which my time was wasted. The first occasion was with my OB/GYN who was running a little late because he'd just delivered a baby. That I can understand and accept. Babies move on their own time and refuse to be rushed so really I'm okay with that. And, since he apologized and I got to eat two delicious fruit bars while I waited, I can't complain. But some doctors are just assholes about it. As if because they have fifty leven degrees in their name, we're supposed to just suck it up and deal with it.

I hate going to the doctor with a passion. Why? Because I'm always being told something I don't want to hear and I always have to wait long past my appointment time just to hear it. I got bad news today, but meh I'm always getting bad news so it's whatever. And the fruit bars made up for it.

The other instance in which my time was wasted was during a parent teacher conference that never happened. Not because I didn't show up 10 minutes on time. Side note: I truly loathe the "CP time" stereotype. That's "colored people time" for those of you who don't know. It's a stereotype about how black people are always late. Well, not me. I am pretty much always on time. Sometimes, I'm more than 30 minutes early. Being late is a pet peeve of mine because it shows a lack of respect for the other person or people waiting on you. Now, I don't mind the person who is late occasionally, but the habitual line stepper who is always late drives me nuts. The only time I don't keep to a schedule is when I'm on vacation.

Anyway, back to the second instance. My middle son's teacher was not only late, she was a no show. Now, school protocol is this:

Due to security concerns, all doors are locked before, during, and after school. If you are meeting with a teacher after school hours, please check in with the front office and WAIT for the teacher to come and escort you to the classroom for the meeting.

That is STRAIGHT from the parent handbook. And, when I got there it is exactly what the principal told me to do. Now look, this ain't my first rodeo. I've had kids in this school for the last three and a half years. I know procedure. And after the poor babies got gunned down at Sandy Hook, shit has got real  real at the boys school. I, for one, who is known to have a temper issue is not fixed to fuck around and break protocol. I follow directions, but I also follow what is in my heart and gut. My gut, my heart, and the principal told me to stay put and wait.

So I did.

And continued to wait...

After 15 minutes our appointment should have started, I left. Mind you, we got there at 3:30pm. Our appointment was at 3:45pm. I left at 4pm. At that point, we'd been waiting 30 minutes and had paged her twice.

I won't lie and say I was in the best mood, I was pleasant. But realistically, I had been waiting 30 minutes with two tired kids, and my uterus was being a bitch (but come on, who could blame her. She'd been poked and prodded like a slab of beef just a few hours earlier). So I so kindly let the school administrative assistant know that we were going home and that his teacher could call me to reschedule.

Guess who called me as I was parking my car in front of my apartment? Yep, his teacher. This woman had the nerve to ask me to turn back around because she was waiting on me. Excuse me?! Waiting on ME?!  I nicely informed her that we had been waiting for her for 30 minutes in the office and that she was the one who didn't show up. She replied with "well then why didn't you come to my classroom if you were on campus?" to which I told her because when it comes to the safety of my children and other children I FOLLOW PROTOCOL. Then!!!! She had the nerve to get ignant (yes, past the point of ignorant and indignant) with me and tell me I had wasted her time.

I had to stop a minute and pray to my Heavenly Father not to jump through the phone and smack the taste out of her mouth. Who does that?! And where?! No ma'am! This is not how I was raised.

I told her through gritted teeth that she would need to reschedule the conference with his father and told her to stay blessed and hung up. It was all I could do from breaking into a screaming rant.

Lawd jeezus, I am not the one! Why do some people feel like their time is more valuable?

Either My Oldest is Evil or I'm She Hulk...

 

So this morning my oldest son and I did The Color Run. Actually, he ran it and I walked it with my person Gwen. Gwen was working with a recovering ankle and I was working with a busted uterus (I'll explain another day) so we walked it and talked and just had a good time. Since Cameron wanted to run it (he runs track during the Summer for the city), he clearly finished ahead of us. So imagine my surprise when he met us towards the finish line.

I thought "oh look at my sweet boy coming back to finish with his Mama"...

I was wrong! This boy came back so he could douse me with a shit ton of green color. Now yes, I know the whole point of the run is for me to get drenched in color but who drenches their Mama?! I'll tell you who! My oldest son! Little monster covered my entire back with green powder! So much so that I spent 30 minutes in the shower trying to get back to my natural skin tone. But nooooo I'm stuck with this damn green color. I look like I'm fixed to Hulk out any moment now. Not to mention, the driver seat inside Bea (my car) is green, blue, pink, and purple...yay for forgetting to bring a towel.

You know what though? I had a great time. Cameron and I got up early for first breakfast (you runners know what I mean) and got to have a nice talk about girls, school, expectations. And, I got to cleanse my soul by talking with my person (you Grey's Anatomy fans know what I mean). And now that we're about to enjoy second breakfast, I have another moment to bond with my boy.

One really cool thing that happened is that I ran into Ona (forgive me if I butchered your name) at the race and that reminded me that if I wanted to stay apart of BGR! (Black Girls Run!) I need to keep my Facebook account because it's how we communicate. I thought about creating another account, but I'm too lazy for all that. And since FB wouldn't let me delete my account, I'll keep it so I can keep up with BGR! The group has truly been a lifesaver and kept my interest with running up. So sorry folks, don't get excited and expect to see activity on my account. Nope, still no interest in maintaining a personal FB account.

Why Am I Always the Bad Guy?

Every person in my household under the age of 18 is in trouble. The whole crew is grounded. No TV, no phone, no music, no books, no toys, no video games. Nothing. And I hate it as much as they do. I hate being the bad guy and always having to put my foot down. I know it's for the best. But that doesn't mean I have to feel good about it.

My oldest son lost his mind and decided to go in MY room and get his cell phone and use it after I took it from him last night and told him he was not to use it until I gave it back. He done lost his damn mind over this little girl he keeps texting. Well, now I've put a quick stop to that by going over to her house. Yes, I did! And talking with her mother and showing her mother the kind of stuff she's been sending my son. She's ELEVEN YEARS OLD!!! I am a grown ass thirty-one year old woman and I for damn sure wouldn't even fix my lips to say some of the mess she's spitting out at her age. This can't be life! Of course, my son now hates me. Yadda, yadda, yadda tell me something I don't know little boy. And her mother was giving her an earful when we left. Now, look, I know preteens are going to want to hold him and call themselves dating, hell I even did it. But no ma'am! No sir! I already told y'all I'm not about that 35 year old grandma life. That is not about to happen. The bottom line is he is TOO YOUNG to be thinking about a girlfriend. He needs to focus on transitioning into 6th grade and middle school. Cause if I'm keeping it one hundred, he's struggling. It doesn't help that he's got several learning disabilities and I'm starting to think he might be dyslexic as well. And, I know none of that isn't important to him. He wants to be cool. He wants to get girls. But what he's going to get is an education. End of story. He can be cool when he's a college graduate. He can get girls when he's supporting himself in his own house. *sigh*

Now, my middle son. Lawd! I thought I was golden with this one. Quiet, reads all the time, eats all his dinner, and helps clean up nightly. Welp, I was wrong. This child has not been turning in his math or reading homework since August 27th. School started on the 26th! A whole month. A whole damn month this child has turned in little to no homework. This can't be life! Despite the fact that I check his homework with him nightly and see him put it in his backpack every single day, he has not been turning it in! Where they do that at?! And why?! I swear if it's not one thing it's another. At least I'm still the only girl he wants in his life and he's got his mind on them books and off them girls.

Don't even get me started on my youngest son! Lawd, have mercy upon my soul! When my mama cursed me with "I hope you have one just like you ten times worse", she cursed me good. This child is destroying me. Every single day it's something new from attitude to tantrums to wilding out like he has no home training. I just can't! This can't be life! I honestly can't for the life of me figure out why he's acting like Rosemary's baby instead of my child who was so excited to go to Kindergarten he couldn't sleep. Where did that child go?! Cause this one who sleeps on those Spiderman sheets cannot be my baby! He just can't be.

And here we are Friday night with two of the three doing homework they haven't been doing or redoing tests they failed and the last one sitting in his room quietly staring out the window. You know what should be happening right now? We should be getting a knock on the door for a pizza delivery and getting ready to queue up a movie for pizza and movie night. We should be putting on our jammies and brushing our teeth before we spoil ourselves with popcorn and candy. But noooooooo, I've got to be strict and stick to my guns and make sure missed assignments get done and be a fun killer.

Yay...

Texting Girls?! Where They Do That At? Cause It Ain't in THIS House!

So imagine my surprise this afternoon when I came home to find my oldest son grinning ear to ear. The kid who has been in a shitty mood for weeks..yeah, THAT kid! This post is brought to you by the letter H and the letters T and A for hormones and teenage angst. So anyway, this kid just has this huge kool-aid smile all over his face. He's glowing! He'd taken out the trash, cleaned his room, and taken out the chicken from the freezer to defrost. What could have gotten into my baby? Had I been spared teenage angst? Had the hormones left him and turned him back into my sweet boy?

Nope. He was texting. A girl!!! Um what?! First, let's move past the fact that his phone is NOT for him to be texting his friends all willy nilly. And he damn sure shouldn't be texting any girls! Not in THIS house! No sir! No ma'am! I'm 31 years old and I have no plans whatsoever to be anybody's grandma before I turned 50. Real talk! I am not about that 35 year old grandma life!

Now yes, I know I'm jumping the gun and already got this child making babies off of a few texts. I know, I'm paranoid. But let's back up to these texts. No they weren't sexual or inappropriate. They were actually quite sweet, but I'm not about that right now. Anyway, he knows he's not allowed to have a girlfriend or go out on dates.

                                    

Now get this...this child asked this little girl out on date to the school dance next Friday night! Where they do that at?! Please believe I was on that Tamar Braxton level when I read that mess!

 NO SIR!!! You are NOT taking Little Miss Sunshine to the school dance and you damn sure ain't fixed to have her as a girlfriend either!

Although, I did have an inkling of a heart and ask his dad if he could take his son to the dance since I'm out of town next Friday to start my vacation. Because besides the fact he didn't ask one of us first OR even ask if he could go AND he wasn't supposed to be texting to begin with--I didn't want to embarrass him. I know it had to have taken a lot of courage for him to ask her, especially since he's introverted and a bit shy. And, he called her and asked her over the phone instead of texting her. He told her he had something important to ask her and asked if he could call. (Awww, I'm raising him right)

Anyway, the dance is actually on the 17th. Which means he has 16 days to convince me why I should let him go. Alone. Or wait a minute! Since I'll be back in town that night, who says I can't put on my dancing shoes and go too? Who wouldn't me on their arm as a date?! I look damn good and I'm a great dancer!

What Does It Mean to Connect?

Something that has been heavily on my mind since I made the decision to leave Facebook is connection. I goofed earlier today and did a factory reset without backing up my contacts and that forced me to get back on FB in order to leave a post asking people to text me their numbers. Well, that opened me up to text messages of disbelief, why and how could, and would I be joining another social media site like Google+. And, sadly some people thought I was breaking up with them. Like I mentioned yesterday, just because I'm leaving a site doesn't mean I'm severing our connection.

I see it like this, I moved a shit ton of times when I was a kid. Yet, I still maintained those connections. And gasp! there was no such thing as FB back then. Hell, the internet was barely around. I think Facebook (to be honest) is a great way to keep in touch with someone. But, I also think it gives people the means to be lazy. No, hear me out. I have met and kept up with some amazing people online. But (and I know it's NOT  just me who does this) I have managed to keep up my connections with these people offline. I have a friend who in the course of the 5 or more years we've known each other who has moved over from the East Coast to the West Coast keep in contact with me on the regular despite the fact we've never met face to face. So it's possible.

This isn't to give anyone who uses FB any shit. I'm just tired of people giving me shit about it. I truly don't have any future plans to return. Yes, it's true I tend to leave and come back, but I just can't do that anymore. Yeah, I'd like to keep up with everyone, but I just can't do it anymore. The older I get, the more introverted I'm becoming and I just want to be alone.

So what does it mean to connect? For me connection is any means of keeping in touch, but not left solely to only one form. This is not the 1700s where folks only had horseback riders and pigeons to carry messages.