Is that Broad Still Complaining?

I really hate to follow one complaining post with another, but I'm afraid that's just my life right now. I feel a little overwhelmed with everything. It seems life is just one rush after another. If I'm not rushing to work, I'm rushing to get the kids to lessons or other activities, or I'm rushing to church or to a meeting.

When I do finally stop for a brief moment, I open my eyes and I'm surrounded by dirty laundry and dirty dishes that need to be dealt with.

Anyway - that isn't really what this post is supposed to be about.

Remember my complaints about the weekend? Well, I left out one other fairly major bummer part of the weekend.

After school Thursday (there was no school for students on Friday - Professional Development Day for staff), I received a phone call from a parent, telling me that her daughter was "quite upset" that her map was not up on the bulletin board with all of the others on Open House night. The daughter knew that she had handed it in, and the mother could vouch that it was completed, as she, the mother, had put it in the daughter's backpack herself after she had completed it. Together, the two of them had searched the daughter's desk the evening of Open House, and it most definitely was not there. (Basically, without even veiling the accusation, she was accusing me of losing it.) I promised that I would search for it on the weekend (because, as you all know, I'm sure, that's just the sort of thing teacher's live to do on the weekends!) and get back to her on Monday.

I was out at the school Saturday, doing some catch-up work, and I did spend some time (about an hour, actually) looking for this map. I looked through many of the cupboards in my classroom, and I turned my library office (not the tidiest place in the world, as a rule) upside down.

Because nothing turned up, I actually lost sleep over it. I woke up in the middle of the night on Saturday, and tossed, turned, and stewed because I would have to make a phone call to this high maintenance parent on Monday morning and inform her that I had no idea where the map was.

Well, I didn't have to make that phone call after all, because the aforementioned parent walked into my room to follow up 15 minutes before classes began Monday morning. Had I found the map?

No, I told her. I informed her that I had been out at the school Saturday looking for it, and that I had looked everywhere. I said that I would mark her daughter absent for the assignment, thereby disregarding the project and neither improving or lowering her grade. Unlike the mother, I placed no blame; I simply sought a compromise.

The mother said she would check her daughter's desk one more time.

Well, lo and behold, guess what was found folded up and tucked into the girl's Social Studies duo-tang? Come on - try to guess. Yes - you, my blog friends are so smart - there was a beautifully coloured map of Canada!

But that's not even the end of the story. The most tell-tale part is yet to come.

Although the mother looked a little sheepish, no apology issued from her lips.

Not a word from the daughter, either. If fact, when I casually said to the girl, "Oh, I'm so glad your map showed up!" her reply was simple....

"Oh, yeah."