It's important because, at various times over this tale, you are likely to wonder if (a) the house burned down, (b) Elliot is okay, and (c) if I had the state called on me as an unfit mother.
So, I repeat...
EVERYTHING IS FINE.
On with the tale.
Yesterday was my first Friday at work. For those of you who don't know, I've recently taken a new job. It's great, I'm super happy with the company, and, more importantly, it has the best working mother schedule in the world. Most of the time I only have to be in the office every other Friday; when they cater lunch and then have cocktail hour at four and we all play Beat Saber.
Right?
RIGHT?
Bask in the glory.
Anyway, since I was just starting I've had a few extra office days recently, but they always either were scheduled so I could be home around the time the kids got out of school, or someone else was here (for instance, I was down in Boston all day Wednesday, but my mother-in-law was here so that was no big.)
Yesterday was the first day I was (a) in the city and (b) no one else was home.
On top of this (and this detail is critical to the story) Elliot is currently awaiting a new school placement. So he's at home, being homeschooled until the new placement goes through.
If you're quick, you've realized that this means he was going to be home alone yesterday.
Now, to be clear, I did not just swan out the door without a care. Elliot has a way to contact me on his computer. I had also previewed the day with him, set him up with the school work he needed to do, made sure he had set an alarm for lunch time so he'd remember to eat, and put out food for him. He felt confident, I felt--well--at least moderately okay, and I figured we'd give this a shot.
So I go to work and I'm not really thinking too much about it until my phone rings at 11:30.
Now, this call is coming from Charlotte's account on Hangouts. (Hangouts is the google messaging app.) This confuses me because Charlotte is supposed to be in school. I answer the phone immediately.
"Chaz?"
"NO! It's me!" My son sounds slightly panicked. "I fucked up really bad!"
I die. In this moment, I am dead. Something has happened. The world is coming to an end. I am forty minutes away from my son and something is horribly, horribly wrong.
He continues. "I locked myself out of my email account!"
The world stutters and my heart starts beating again.
"Oh." I say, barely able to speak due to the adrenaline spike that now has nowhere to go. "Ah, what happened?"
Turns out my dude had tried to fix the ad settings on his YouTube (yes, some of his school work involves educational videos on YouTube) and had, in all innocence, given google his real age, whereupon google had promptly booted him. He was calling from Charlotte's account because he was locked out of his own account. I logged in, fixed it, proved I was an adult with the right to do this, and got him set back with his account and told him to leave the ad settings alone. Crisis averted, right?
Well...
About 90 seconds after I hang up with Elliot, my phone rings again. This time it's an unknown number.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Jessica, it's Linda."
This is Linda Rosa, the social worker at the school that Elliot used to attend and Charlotte currently attends, calling me (I can only assume) from her personal cell phone. That does not normally happen.
"Is Charlotte okay?"
"Charlotte is perfect, but I've gotten this email from Elliot..."
My son--my brilliant, problem solving, alternative thinking son--had apparently not immediately thought of using his sister's account to contact me, and had instead logged into his school email account and used it to contact Linda. According to her his email was as follows;
"Help, I've fucked up really bad! Please call Mommy and tell her I need her."
I feel like maybe Elliot and I need to sit down and have a chat about how to word things.
After assuring Linda that he was fine and that I had spoken with him and that it had actually been a fairly minor issue, we hung up the phone and I moved on with my day.
Well, I tried to move on with my day.
Three minutes later, my phone rings again.
This time it is the Parker Elementary main number.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Jessica, this is Chrissy, I'm calling because I've got this email from Elliot..."
Y'all... I cannot accurately describe my emotional state in that moment, but it was a bizarre mixture of guilt over their worry combined with wild hilarity.
Chrissy (the current principal of the Parker) told me that she had heard from (in no particular order) Elliot's third grade teacher, his fourth grade teacher, the Behavioral Analyst, and the old principal, all of whom had heard from Elliot and were worried about him.
I sent them all an email.
Then I contacted my son.
Y'all...
So anyway. I get home from work yesterday, and Elliot comes bounding down the stairs with a big grin on his face.
"Well! That was quite an exciting day, wasn't it?"
You can say that again, dude.
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