Story time...

The setting: 7:40 AM at our bus stop. Carter who has managed to lose all his sweatshirts is standing outside crying. He has jackets but refuses to wear them because his head gets cold. So, the bus drives up, Carter is hysterically crying, "I can't feel my head." After laughing to myself for a second, I'm getting mad. I try to patiently get him on the bus (where it's warm)...the bus driver, "Brenda" is glaring at me like, "Lady, get control of your kid." After telling him if he doesn't get on the bus, he loses the Wii for the whole weekend (the absolute most horrible, wretched punishment Carter could receive) and, I finally give in, and tell her to go ahead without him. So, we go home and I am TICKED. I start rummaging through all the dirty laundry (yes, desperate times call for desperate measures) and find his black hoodie, which is dirty, but it has a hood. I give it to him and drive him to school where he is almost late since it has taken me so long to find the stinkin' sweatshirt.

Fast forward to 3:45 that afternoon. Carter comes in and says that he and a boy in his class were fighting over the black sweatshirt each claiming it belongs to him which caused the teacher to take it away from both of them. I am STEAMING at this point, because I know we'll have a repeat of above scenario tomorrow morning. So, I send an e-mail to the teacher, just as she is calling me to discuss the matter. I tell her the story of how I know it's Carter's sweatshirt and she says okay, I'll call the other parent and let you know.

Fast forward to this morning at 7:15 AM. Carter's teacher calls and says, I have the sweatshirt, tell carter to come to my room as soon as he gets there and I will hand it to him. I agree. Later in the afternoon, I went to the school for the wrestling match and stay late to pick up carter from school. When the bell rang, Carter cam tearing out of the building across the grass, so I yell, Carter, I'm right here, where are you going? He mumbles something about sweatshirt and office and promptly lets himself in through the principal's door (who is Rob, a friend of ours, and the father of Carter's clone Sammy). He busts through the principal's office (after briefly looking for the Jelly Belly jar) and into the main office. Trying to figure out what on earth is going on, I ask the secretaries if they know anything about a sweatshirt. One says, no, and the other says, let me call Rob. She calls Rob and goes into his office and retrieves the sweatshirt. Meanwhile, a woman and her child in the front of the office overheard the word "sweatshirt" and said, "that's my son's sweatshirt." Great, it was "the other woman." So, I said, "well, maybe one of them is in the lost and found," to which the office staff replies, no, we've looked. There is only one black sweatshirt and this is it. Great. The woman, at this point is getting upset. I think I was calm, but who knows? Because as this lady and I were talking back and forth over the counters, the speech pathologist comes out and says, "Michelle, is everything okay?" (Bella, Carter and jake are in speech, so she knows me). So, it must've been loud. Thankfully, Rob came in and said to the other woman "You need to leave now." She started to say something and Rob repeated, "You need to leave right now." So, she walked out, and Rob followed her and that was that.

So, after al the chaos and the lady yelling at me, they bring me the sweatshirt and ask if it's mine and I say, "Uh, I don't know. I think so." Carter's behind me saying, "Mom, that's my sweatshirt, that's my sweatshirt." I follow her back into Rob's office and the secretary says, "Is this his size?" Yes, it's his size. Then I look at the arms and see them...all the spots and stuff that was on it...the reason I had thrown it into the dirty laundry to begin with. Ahhh, I'm not a complete idiot. Yes, it was his sweatshirt. So, I walk back out to the front and ask, "What just happened here?" I apologized for such a big tadoo being made out of a stupid sweatshirt. The secretaries' responses were, "Don't worry about it. There's a history here, it has nothing to do with you."

Seriously? Did it almost come to screaming match at the elementary school over a stinking sweatshirt? THE SWEATSHIRT ISN'T EVEN NICE!!!! Mom bought it at Goodwill for a few dollars when we went camping last year! Everyone in the vacinity of the office had come out to see what was going on including the nurse, for heaven's sake! So now when the office staff sees me coming, they're all going to pass the secret signal around "Don't look up, crazy sweatshirt lady's here." Yes, I will forever be known as one of "Those parents" at the elementary school office, and Malia hasn't even started school there yet! The funny thing is, that on any other day, I would've had no idea what sweatshirt Carter had worn. I barely know what I wore yesterday, I certainly don't remember what my kids are wearing after they leave my sight.

Moral of the story...it's good to have friends in high places. Thanks Rob...