If he can make it through six more hours of school...stick a fork in his skinny little butt, "He's Done!"
Got the email today from his teacher...which royally ticked Zach and his global sized ego off. She told me he had one more paper to turn in, his senior paper on Culinary Arts.
I found it on the computer and had my sister edit it ...after I had edited it. I'm getting this boy out of school no matter what. If I have to sleep with one of the custodian's so what? They are generally the nicest people at the school and the one's being paid the least. I thought wouldn't it be great if he buffed all my floors before he left or took the trash out for me? Talk about a win/win situation!
Zach burred all up when I told him I was going to edit his paper. He said it was four pages long and that was good enough. He also said he was 18 and in charge of his own education...I simply walked away, to the computer and sat down and edited his paper anyway. The paper was pretty well written, although, he seemed to have a comma after every other, single word. (get my drift?)
He still doesn't understand the "There Their They're" rule when he is writing or most probably thinks it reads the same either way so...NEXT PARAGRAPH!
Now was the hard part...getting him to turn this paper in with the corrections. I knew he had a hard time making the paper four pages long. His first draft was done in font # 42 and there were three inches between each paragraph...Helen Keller could have read it.
Once that horrible relentless tyrant of a teacher who made her every day goal to torment Zach (NOT) told him it had to be in a certain font, he faltered.
He finally made it four pages long, but barely. I gave the new one to him this morning and said "I know you didn't want help but Aunt Cin taught English for years and wanted to give you the gift of cleaning up your paper. This one doesn't have one grammatical error or wrong punctuation ...the only bad thing is that it made the paper a bit longer, will that count off?"
BINGO!!!!!!!
I called my sister and told her about my skills as a mother of an 18 year old know it all who didn't have a clue as to what really happened. She said "Kelly, I only taught English for two years." I told her that two was plural and we were calling it "Years."
It was the same paper with the same ideas and same message, it just flowed better now.
NEXT DAY...
My husband said not to say too much (who ME?) because Zach would get suspicious and he was right (that's the second time in 23 years, he's on a roll!) I didn't mention it again.
I took him to school this morning...the LAST morning of his high school career/4 year debacle and when he got out of the car actually said "Thanks for the paper."
I said a prayer in the parking lot before I ever pulled off. "Dear Lord, let him make it five more hours without a major blow up."
As Zach used to say when he was four "My prayers came right!"
He's done!! He has pushed me to limits I never knew I possessed but has given me what I asked for..."Do it and get OUTTA there with a diploma." I am a bit apprehensive about graduation. When they call his name, if the faculty doesn't give him a standing ovation (obviously more for themselves than him) they will most certainly start a wave and begin that old chant from high school football games in the seventies... "Na na na nah, Na na na nah, Hey - hey...Good Bye."
As we say around these parts... "My boy's done gonna git gradgiated."
I don't know who's happier, me or them. All I DO know is that it ain't been easy when it could have been but at least we all have somehow survived....and that's a GOOD thing!
His dress pants are at the cleaners and he is headed to graduation practice tomorrow at 9AM.
Life is looking up! Even more good news came today but that is another blog. I like to leave you with a cliff hanger because my life seems to be such a great soap opera.
Stay tuned........COTTON
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