Parentz in the Hood

How can I have parent/teacher meetings with these parents? I’m not talking about bitching about their kid not getting a fair shake. No I’ve adapted to that and just roll with it—like when Wheel of Fortune started spotting contestants the RSTLNE because it got too boring with only those letters being picked. So get your bitching out of the way, parents. That way I can move on to explaining that the blanks on my quizzes are to indicate omissions and not an opportunity for their son to play jack-a-ninny Mad Libs. Unless I’m wrong, and there was something called a “Fagasaurus” in The Great Gatsby.

No, it’s these new signs of apathy demonstrated by the parents that bothers me. Take yesterday for example. The father wouldn’t take off his hooded sweatshirt. When I say, “hooded sweatshirt” the dude wasn’t rocking the Unabomber. This was a case of him wearing the hood on his head and letting the rest of the garment just hang there. He looked like the extra in some ten-year-old’s homemade Star Wars movie.

The thing remained on his head the entire time. I mean I could have asked him to remove his makeshift headdress, but while one part of me was perturbed, the other half of me was curious as to what else he would do. For a while he rocked his head back and forth and his fabric locks flowed gently. Then he, uh, stuck the hood’s drawstrings in his mouth and sucked on them. That was kind of gross.

All of this was done with a vacant look on his face. I kept repeating myself to make sure he got what I was saying. Finally, I summed things up for him by telling him that his kid had room for his behavior to improve. He just responded with a, “’K,” and I sent him on his way.

Maybe I should remain positive. Maybe he wasn’t apathetic. Perhaps he bamboozled me with the old Act like a giant two-year-old with a hoodie trick. If so, then well-played. Or he could have cared, but he just happened to be on drugs. That’s positive, right?