On Becoming an Adult: Part One

Two nights ago I went to my oldest son's freshman version of high school Back-to-School night. This would be my first Back-to-School night ever as the parent of a high schooler. Let it be known that I'm just now getting over the exhaustion-- both mental and physical-- of it all.

To recap, the evening's order of operations went like this:

* Child writes down school schedule.
* Parent arrives at school, stands in hot quad area as school band, upbeat teachers and a chipper student leadership team welcomes them.
* Parents are offered and expected to consume copious amounts of free hot dogs and soda.
* Once pumped full of sugar and nitrates, an announcer relates that it is time to begin the death march to each class.
* Parents attend each class on an intensely modified PA announced schedule and sweat profusely as they feign interest in the class's grading structure.

I learned a lot from this experience. I think it important to impart the wisdom.

For starters, I learned it is considered rude to:
* Arrive late;
* Yawn, or conversely, show any signs of being out of breath;
* Count the number of teacher's "uhms" uttered per sentence.

I arrived at the school, Starbucks in hand, and met up with my dear friend, Momologue. Momo's oldest son is also a freshman, and she, having also been black-wearing, long-banged angst-ridden teen, joined me in my overall feeling of "whelmed." Long since past the days of pretending to fit in, being a parent of a high schooler had officially inducted us into the Halls of Adulthood.

Damn.