Mom on the Run
“Slacker.” Pete’s deep voice rumbles from his cube. I’m on the phone, but I hear him, and I smile. Pete is absolutely right.
And I soldier on. “So I know this is very last-minute, but I was hoping for an appointment within the next week.”
I’ve been in denial about the whole college process for my son. I claimed I was focusing on graduation – though the whole graduation season took, frankly, just a few evenings of my time – but it’s at least partly that I’m bored with it. My son is my second child to go off to college, and after the thrill and adventure of the tours and acceptance (or rejection! Augh!) letters, it’s just one form and one check after the other. It’s not exciting or interesting, it’s repetitive and mountingly expensive, with two in college, and I have a lot of reasons to procrastinate.
It didn’t help that my son’s college apparently believes that their newly accepted freshmen are organized and attentive, because everything they have sent – questionnaires, checklists, loan information, everything – has gone through a student web portal, accessible to the student only. Not really effective for a teenager just transitioning to adulthood, if you ask me. I remember to ask occasionally, but I haven’t been as on top of all this as I was three years ago with my daughter, when I helpfully received all the same emails and forms that she did.
So just yesterday I thought to ask: “You have to have a physical for college. When is that due?” And my son had picked up his phone, opened his Orientation App (an Orientation app!), scrolled around, and said, “Not until July 1.”
July 1? Not until? That’s less than two weeks away! Ahh! “Oh my gosh!” I had exclaimed. “We have to get you in there! I hope they can fit you in on such short notice!” I know things my son doesn’t: that he just turned 18, and we need to transfer him from his lifelong pediatrician to our grown-up doctor’s office. That physicals take longer than a sick visit and are lower priority, so they’re often harder to book. That everyone needs to get their kids’ physicals done now, for camps and, yes, colleges, so those rare spaces are even more valuable.
Dang it! I grimaced, but tried not to let him know that I was worried.
“OK,” I told him a minute later, after breathing deeply and checking the calendar. “I’ll call first thing in the morning. In the meantime, find the physical form.”
My son shrugged and nodded casually. And that didn’t work for me. I didn’t want him to freak out about maybe missing a college deadline, but I wanted him to take this seriously, too.
“Hey. Pay attention. There’s a form. There has to be. I can’t get to it, because it’s on that orientation website for which only you have the password. I’m going to do the best I can to get you in there this week, and I may end up with a very last-minute appointment. So find the form. Print it out. Have it ready. Got it?”
My firm voice got his attention. He nodded, picked his phone back up, and started scrolling some more.
That’s where we left it last night. Me, worried. My kid, not so much. And now it’s morning, and the doctor’s office opened just a few minutes ago, and I’m on the phone. I listened to the whole menu of choices impatiently – why did they say, “To make an appointment, press 0” dead last, isn’t that the most frequently used option? – reached a receptionist, and threw myself on her mercy.
“So I have to have the form in to the college health center in two weeks,” I said. “Is there any way?”
And that’s when Pete’s sarcastic and accurate comment floats to my cube: “Slacker.” I hear him, and I wince, and I hope the receptionist feels more kindly towards my dilemma.
“I have a 2:45 on Thursday,” she says. “Can he make that?”
“Yes!” I cry. “Absolutely. He’ll be there. Thank you!” I don’t check the calendar; I don’t care. We’ll take it. Whenever it is, my son will be there. Yes!
I hang up the phone and call out to Pete: “Yes, I’m a slacker, but they got me in!” And we laugh together, knowing – uh oh! – my slacker-ness was just rewarded and encouraged, and I’ll be doing this again.
