Music to His Ears

During the school Spring Break, Connor's new class schedule showed up in the mail.   He was horrified to see that he was now enrolled in a choir class.  Choir! It cannot be overstated how unhinged the kid became at this disturbing news.

In hindsight, this may have explained most of his death-defying stunts over spring break and that perhaps they were most likely attempts to injure himself out of having to take this class.  Perhaps he was hoping to puncture a lung.  He may have figured a stint in the hospital would be much more comfortable than spending the last semester of his 7th-grade career being segregated to sing with the girls in the soprano section as his voice hasn't yet made it's final transformation to a tenor.  Potentially not one of the finer moments for a middle school boy.  So when Connor wasn't endangering his life during spring break with his buddy Sev, he was seriously stressing over the his impending incarceration to a choir class.

The evening before school started back up from Spring Break I found this note on his backpack:

 Here's a closer look:

There are TWO major signs of desperation right there...

First, notice the kid underlined the word "not" FIVE times.  Twice would have been sufficient for someone caught in the middle of such an ominous overture, but five?  Five is just shy of that sinister number six.  Five is the mark of pure desperation.

Second is the fact that he was willing to ask me to write a note.  That doesn't happen around here unless things are really bad.  My kids hardly ever voluntarily submit themselves to bringing a note I've written to their school.

Yes, the kid was showing all the classic signs of despair.

So I wrote him a note.  But I could tell by the serious look on his face that I'd better go easy on him so I wrote something not-too-embarrassing...

 

 But from the severely downtrodden face he came home from school with, the note didn't work. 

Now usually when it comes to school issues, I usually let things run their natural course-- but if you could have seen the look on Connor's face, you'd agree that this little situation seemed to warrant a mother-to-the-rescue moment.  That's because unlike most choir teachers, I DO NOT believe the nefarious notion that inside everyone is a budding singer that's begging to be unleashed.  Have you watched the first rounds of American Idol?  Case closed. Not everyone is cut out to sing.

And so we went to Def-con 2.
A visit to the school.  
Dun, Dun, Dunnnn.


That didn't seem to help either.  I got the run-around.  The councilor wasn't available, but passed on the message that the schedule was going to have to stand.

Connor was beyond devastated.  He even offered to work as an aid to the janitor during that class hour.  But it all fell on deaf ears.  I was getting ready to barge in his office anyway and give him my "If you insist he learns to sing, I'll have to insist you learn develop a sense of humor" speech but Connor saw my inner mother bear begin to rear its ugly head and thought it best to quickly remove me from the building.

But then on the way out of the school, a miracle happened.  The gal at the front desk took pity on poor Connor.  She knew I'd be back, or worse, write another note.  So she decided to take matters into her own hands and covertly motioned for him to come over and with a deviously raised eyebrow and a few clicks of her mouse, Connor's choir class "disappeared" from his official schedule. 

That click of her mouse was music to his ears.  Which is the ONLY kind of music Connor was willing to submit to.