The Morning After

Tuesday I arranged the delivery of 500-plus yearbooks to our student body. This is the fifth year I’ve done this. Unfortunately, I’ve had five years of “morning afters.”

Morning afters are the morning after the yearbooks go home and the kids cry to their mommas about why they didn't get a yearbook and their mommas email me about why their babies didn't get a yearbook and what am I going to about this. And since I try not to stress myself out about the small things in life that I have an easy manner of fixing, I usually just say "oh my, I am so sorry, please accept my apologies and this yearbook." And my life moves on.

But this year...well, this year I made a bit of an error. Long story short, but about 12 kids didn't get their "parent dedications" put in the yearbook. Of those 12 kids, three of their parents have sent me ridiculous emails. Ridiculous. Ridiculous. And I've politely emailed them back. And they've sent me even more ridiculous emails in response. And I'm about to lose my mind about it.

Here's a little sampling (my responses are in italics):
"Jennifer"
um, unless you chill with me on the weekends, you will address me by my formal name...
"I know this is a small town, and we may run into each other, but..."
Yes, we will. Because you GO TO MY CHURCH!
" I had to leave such-and-such very important meeting to assure my child got her yearbook."
No, you didn't. Because I didn't leave my such-and-such important meeting with 21 seven-year-olds because it was my job and I wasn't about to leave it over something insignificant like a yearbook issue.
"vent vent vent vent ???????????"
Really? You had to put eleven question marks behind that to make your point? Really? My fingers got bored typing that many question marks in my attempt to be accurate for this blog post!

There's more to this letter, but I'll spare you. I also got two other emails that are ridiculous.
Here's what I would have loved to write back to this and the other two:
"Dear parent,
Pull yourself together.
Love and Kisses,
Jennifer"

Instead, I wrote an empathetic, totally professional email that I'm sure will not be the end of this.



After all this, I get home and get another whammy on a different issue.
So I will probably not be speaking to anyone anytime soon.
And I will be watching Lost.
And drinking wine.