White and Bus-less

Who are you calling white?

My neighbor Anne of Green Gables came to my door this week with a complaint regarding no recent blog entries. Here's a synopsis of why I haven't blogged:

Work:
I've been busy. There is no end in sight as far as referrals go. I could work 100 hours a week if I wanted to. It is known that I will take tough cases. I like tough cases. They keep me awake in the afternoon. At my age this is important.

I did have the good fortune to see Little Dog this week between clients. Since I was in da'neighborhood I stopped by. Little Dog answered the door boing, boing, boinging up in the air in gleeful anticipation like a furry little pogo stick when she saw me. I knocked politely. No answer. I knocked politely again. No answer. I did the: flushyourcrackdownthecrapper knock which woke everyone up.

I learned the flushyourcrackdownthecrapper knock from A Health Department employee in the 80's who was a Drug Involved Familes nurse. Now days I'm pretty sure you couldn't name a program Drug Involved Families as this would be a Hipaa violation. For those of you who are unfamiliar with Hipaa it is an acronym which stands for Hey I'm Prettysure Ain'tnuthinconfidential Anyhoo.

Irregardless of what the medical profession says Hipaa policy was secretly designed as a deforesting project. Millions of trees have given their lives to become the useless 3 page Notice of Privacy Policy that is handed out every time a patient farts.

I'm happy to report that Little Dog is fine.

The Bus:
On Monday the Baby's Teacher approached me to inform me there was "a rumor" going around. There may be a bus on Tuesday. Yawn

On Wednesday I was informed it was a GO for Thursday. EVERYTHING was in place. It has now been 24 days since school started. I have been driving The Boy to his school and then driving all the way back past my home in the opposite direction to The Baby's School. Then I go to work. Then I start the process over only backwards for the afternoon pick up

This morning i am waiting for the bus. The phone rings. It is The Baby's teacher. They had only "1/2 of a car seat and Mrs. Smith wasn't comfortable with this so the bus will not start until they get the correct car seat." I'm pretty confident I have no idea who Mrs. Smith is.

I'm also confident that the teacher...bless-her...is referring to a booster seat not, "1/2 a car seat." Although...knowing that we are dealing with my county's school transportation department it is entirely possible that they have cut the car seats in half to save money.

I drive the baby to school while my neighbor, Brasilia, sits with the teenager who is still sleeping.

As I am buckling The Baby into her adaptive seat in the classroom the teacher informs me she tried to call me at 9:00 pm last night but my number was disconnected. I recently had to change the home phone number I have had since 1987. It broke my heart but after the 3rd time I was frauded by The Teenagers birth mother (Social Security, Medicaid, identity, etc.) I confronted her. She swore to me she would never do this as "this is why my mother is in prison." It occurred to me when I had The Teenager at genetics last week and the geneticist was asking me where this relative was and where that relative was and my answer was always prison...prison...died in prison...prison...that it would be a lot easier to just change my phone number than to tolerate the nightly hang-ups I've received since I threatened to call law enforcement.

I asked the teacher why she didn't try my cell phone? She tells me it wasn't listed in their computer. Of course, this tells me that the reams of paper work I filled out on the first day of school have not been entered into the school computer system yet by the data prep clerk as the correct home phone number and cell phone numbers were listed over and over and over and over and over to infinity and beyond.

" Correct," replies the teacher.

At this point I just want to go home and clean the algae out of my pool filter. I am looking forward to cleaning the algae out of my pool filter. I long to clean the algae out of my pool filter.

"There is one more thing," states the teacher. "The baby is listed as Caucasian in the school computer." She goes on to tell me that she is concerned. What if there was an emergency and they were looking for her and she is listed as white? They would never find her. She does have a valid point.

I am speechless. I have a hard time answering. I. Can't. Stop. Laughing.

I suggest she change The baby's race to black since there is nothing white about The Baby except her adoptive honky muther.

"They wouldn't change it. They thought you wanted her listed as white and we need your permission to put her in the system as black." By now the teacher and I are both rolling on the floor. Thank God I only had one cup of tea this morning because I would also be peeing on the floor.

Then a horrific thought hit me. I begged the teacher, "PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE tell me I don't have to go to the office to change her from white to black." Thankfully, the teacher informed me that my verbal consent to make my child black would suffice. She would handle it. They just needed to know that I wanted her listed as black.

When I arrived home I asked Brasilia if she knew you could make your child any race you wanted them to be in our school system? We marveled over the scholarship possibilities.

We are so politically correct it doesn't matter anymore if you're white or black or Native American or Bosnian or Southeast Asian. After all, this is America! You can be anything or any race you want to be!

Very quickly my laughter turned to tears of joy.

Since I was seven years old all I ever wanted to be was a backup singer for Martha and the Vandellas.

After 51 years I am now one step closer to my dream.
God Bless America