School's Out

And Sophomore year is over. This week even though school is out she has been studying for her driver’s permit, her scuba class, and a food handler’s permit so she could go to work some with H. At the end of the month she’ll be heading off on a solo flight to St. Louis to nanny for our friend RB for a couple of weeks. This is a double win for her because not only is she a big fan of RB and her family, but she gets to see her bestie in St. Louis.


So she’s taking this scuba class so she’s ready for her Asian vacation with her buddy J and it’s two nights a week. Seeing the studying that has to happen and listening to the stories makes me even less interested in scuba diving than what I was before. The first night after class she got in the car and said the teacher said that everyone should probably get their fillings checked for air pockets because if your teeth might crack from the pressure. Then she told me the next night that she was having trouble making her ears pop, which you’re supposed to do and one guy in her class said he had to have some kind of surgery on his ear canals because they were small, etc. I was laughing as she was telling me this saying that I didn’t realize that just attending scuba class would rack up a number of healthcare bills. How does one even check for air bubbles in fillings and what is supposed to happen if you have one, remove it and start over?

After the second night I came home and told H that he was going to have to take her to scuba next week. I pride myself in being someone who is almost never late. The first night of her class I swear I was told it started at 7pm but get there 10-15 minutes early for paperwork. Because of me misjudging the traffic we got there right at 7. I was feeling bad about not getting there early and feeling worse at the end of the night when A told me class actually began at 6:30pm. No wonder I got a tight smile from the instructor when she joined them in the classroom. Then second night I get her there early and feel pretty good about it. I stick my head in the room and verify with the instructor that they’ll wrap up around 9:45pm. I go about my business. I get there at 9:45 and A and the instructor are the only ones sitting outside a darkened building. She tells me they’ve been done for about 25 minutes and they’ve just been chatting. I can’t believe this! Especially after the guy at the counter told me that that particular instructor’s classes never get out early because he’s “long-winded”. I have now become that crazy parent with time management issues. I was telling my friend T about this over lunch and she assured me that local people are always late and they call it “Mormon standard time”. I told her yeah it was the first time I thought about lying about A being an only child and telling the guy I actually had six other children and so my responsibilities are great, and there’s just no way I can be bound to his timeline.