Towards the end of the spring, I was on my way to drop off my son at the school bus stop. We were, as usual, running late. Just as I pulled up and stopped the car, as we heard the bus roar up behind us, Dylan gasped with the memory of something forgotten.

“Mom, today we have to turn in our schedules for next year. I completely forgot about it but you have to sign it.”

He dug through the mess that is his backpack and handed me the crumpled form. Knowing there was really nothing else that could be done, with not even enough time for a sufficient tongue-lashing for being irresponsible, I signed the empty grid and warned him, “Fill in your own classes and don’t betray this trust. Don’t sign up for bullshit courses—sign up for the classes you’re capable of taking.” With a sigh and an eyeroll, he poured himself out of the car and ran for the waiting bus.

I didn’t think anything else about this until last week, last week when I received in the mail a letter from the school telling me to come pick up my “student’s” schedule and sign up for all the really “exciting” crap that they have planned for yet another “outstanding new school year.” “Cash only please.”

So I, convinced that I was dying of whatever funk that has consumed me for twelve days now, forced myself, for the sake of my son, to muster up enough strength to shower, dress, and make my way to his school. Which is over yonder. Twenty minutes there. And then twenty minutes back (after we learned that we’d failed to bring some required something that they’d failed to mention we were to bring). And then twenty minutes there again.

We arrived, cash in hand, ready to take advantage of the promised chance of jumping through all of the pencil-pusher’s hoops, of filling out all of the forms (in triplicate, no matter that we filled out the very same fucking forms at the end of the last school year and, NO, nothing has changed, not his social security number, not his eye color, not even his blood type), of paying all of the fees (someone’s gotta be making some money off this gig somewhere), and slapping at least a ten-spot in every outstretched hand (with the coven from the PTA being the worst about guilting you with that bad-parent-if-you-don’t-pay-your-dues vibe). We’d even agreed to go ahead and buy a PE uniform and take a look at where his locker would be.

But when we walked in, the number of tables set up to dig through my bank account was limited. In spite of the letter I’d received that listed all the wonderful things we’d be able to accomplish by showing up at the school in the dead-heat of the summer whilst dying of some dreaded something or other that most certainly has a long, Latin name ending in “itis,” the only thing my half-tank of gas got me was my son’s schedule.

So, on our twenty-minute journey back, I looked over Dylan’s schedule, the one I’d signed off on when it was mostly a blank piece of paper. And it was a pleasant surprise, in that expected way, that my son had done exactly what I’d asked of him: he’d signed up for every advanced class he could. He and I were both very happy with his schedule.

So when he crawled into the car this afternoon after his first day of school and was finally able to extricate the dog’s tongue from his mouth, he looked at me and said, with teenage incredulity, “You’re never going to believe this: they changed my schedule.”

That I didn’t slam on the brakes and damage my tires is a testament to my sometimes even-nature.

He told me of sitting through two classes where his name wasn’t on the roll, chalking it up to the disorganization of every organization, before he asked someone who was supposed to know something just what the hell was going on. Of course, they didn’t know.

So he was sent to the office where he met with even more folks who didn’t know. Yes, indeed, my son, on his first day in the 8^th grade, has received the education that it takes some of us thirty years to absorb: bureaucracies of any kind exist to give otherwise talentless people the ability to fuck up your day. And get paid for it.

But they promised they could get it fixed for him….if he has a parent or guardian do this….and then that….then fill out this form, then that form, and then one more form, and vow to vote Republican, stand on their head in the corner, submit a blood sample, and agree to deliver three chickens and a mule by the end of the week. (Ok, ok—I made one of those things up.)

So tonight, we’ll sit down and I’ll go back over his schedule (I’m still a bit baffled by this “Career Enrichment” class that he’s now been reassigned to take—he’s in the friggin’ 8^th grade! Career enrichment? For a 13 year old? How long does it take to teach a teenager to say, “Would you like fries with that, Sir?”). And I’ll do everything I am supposed to do, being a good, diligent parent who, nevertheless, won’t pay my PTA dues. And who will think nothing of calling the school tomorrow morning to let them know that I’d like, in the future, to be informed, ahead of time, when they arbitrarily choose to scramble my son’s day in an effort to scramble his brain in the name of education.

But don’t get me wrong—I do like this school. And I am typically a fairly congenial person. But I think that you’re NOT a good parent if you don’t call your kid’s school, at least once a year, and leave the person on the other end of the phone wondering if they’ve made a terrible career choice. And hopefully you’ll even get lucky enough to talk to the person who fucked up to begin with…but don’t count on it. About as close as you’ll ever get to them is, “Would you like his voice mail?”