Sometimes, Mother DOES know best

Ok, so today was the day Thing 2 registered for her sophomore year at Drug Central High School.  No, that's not the real name of her school but it's a school with an upper middle class demographic so there's not a gang problem or a teen pregnancy problem but there is a serious drug problem.  Seriously.  In fact, when Thing 1 got busted for making fake parking passes (I was so proud...NOT), the Principal (It's always lovely when you get a call from the principal saying, "Mrs. D?  We have your son here) told me that it was so far down on the list of Things They Have to Deal With that the only punishment was the loss of his legitimate parking pass for the remainder of the school year.

Anyway, registration was set up in a way that if your last name started with Da through Fy, your registration time was from 12:45pm to 1:30pm (it's done NOT in alphabetical order).  So what time does Thing 2 get in the shower?  11:45am.  And what time did she emerge from the bathroom?  12:30pm.  And this is a teenager who does not "do" her hair or wear makeup.  So I'm nagging her to dry her hair so that she wouldn't look like she had lank, greasy hair in her school picture, which is taken during the registration process, and she's all "I don't like to use a hair dyer because I don't want to have Big Hair like yours" and on one hand I wanted to kiss her for that compliment because in my opinion, the Bigger the Hair, the Closer to God and God do I miss my 80's Big Hair and on the other hand I wanted to smack her because she did not mean it as a compliment.  

So every 10 minutes I'm all, "Let's GO!" and she's all "My hair's not dry yet" and I keep nagging telling her that she was assigned a specific time for registration and that it's not "whenever" and she keeps telling me I don't know what I'm talking about.  Finally, at 2:00pm, she's all, "Ok, I'm ready" and we get to school and she's all, "See?  There's nobody here.  We won't have to wait in line now.  I TOLD you there wasn't any reason to get here on time, Mother (which was said in a patronizing, 'you don't know these things, Mom' manner)."  

Well, the reason there wasn't any lines was because Registration was Done and Over With.  It ended at 1:45pm and we got there at 2:15pm.  Because SOMEBODY assumed she had all freakin' day and that the school would be more than happy to sit around and wait for Her Highness to grant them the Honour of Her Presence when her hair had finally air-dried.

It was a very tense drive back home, let me tell you.  And when we got back home, the phone rang and it was the school wanting to know why Thing 2 missed Registration and I got to tell them why.  


So we get to go back on Monday to do this all over again and this time, we only have a 30 minute window and NOT the entire day.  And if you're wondering why I have to be there, it's because money is involved (cash or check only) and there's always unexpected costs and I'm not fond of giving Thing 2 $200.00 and hoping she'll bring back the change.  Because she won't.  Because she'll remind me that back in 1999 I borrowed $ from her and what with interest and all, whatever change was left from registration should just about cover what I owe.  THAT'S why I don't send her off with cash money.  I wish I was kidding about this.


I know it's hard for teenagers to believe but sometimes, Mom DOES know what the heck she's talking about and they'd do well to listen to good ol' Mom.


And, if my mom is reading this, she is probably laughing her butt off and saying, "Karma's a bitch."