The rest of the story:
So, there was the vice principal knocking on my window, thinking he recognized me but asking to be sure, “Are you Mrs. Hyde?” Yes. Can’t I just park? I mean, look at this jam! “No, I don’t think he can walk that far.”
MY kid??
Those 20 minutes it took me to get all those parents out of my frantic way so that I could drive around to the back of the high school gave me enough time to calm down and figure out what likely had happened, although, I only guessed the half of it. I finally got back there, pulling up alongside the firetruck, and saw someone gesturing dramatically with both arms, “In there!” Walked into the classroom to see my son half-lying half-propped-up on the floor, a cup of glucose solution in his hands, and asked him wryly, “So. You didn’t pack your lunch?”
“I TOLD YOU! I *TOLD* you!!” he exclaimed at the paramedics in total protest. My goodness, not one single ounce of sympathy from his mother, huh?!
It had been a beastly hot day, and he’d skipped breakfast. Hadn’t made a lunch. Didn’t want to drink out of the fountains, “They’re gross, Mom.” Got a real workout in gym. And then, the last class of the day, not feeling too well, he suddenly fainted as he stood to hand his test in to the teacher, and smacked his head hard on the desk on the way down. Out cold. The teacher called 911, the bell rang, I can just picture the other kids stunned, hesitating, and then stepping around him–and then the rumor went around the whole school that they’d watched this kid die in their class.
“They made me drink this really gross stuff, Mom.” Yeah, I know–I’ve done the glucose tolerance test, Type 2 diabetes is genetically dominant in my family.
And he was fine. And guess what? I didn’t have to nag him about making his lunch anymore.
But the next day, he watched jaws dropping all day long, time after time after time, every time he walked into the next classroom or across the Quad. “But–you’re dead!” Right, dude, do I look dead?
Make your own lunch. And for heaven’s sake, kid, don’t forget the water.