How I Get Gray Hair

So, did you hear the one about the college student distraught over his grades and claimed to have anthrax and had planted a bomb? Yep, sure did, right at MFS’s college.

I get a call from Lainy, asking how MFS is. I said, “I’m sure he’s absolutely fine as always, he never calls his mother, you know.” She said, “Seriously, is he ok?” I said, “What are you talking about?” She said, “You haven’t seen the news?” I said, “What, did they have more tornadoes or was there another fire?” (It’s been a rather interesting year for the school. Bad storms a while back with tornadoes, but the campus was fine. Not long ago a fire broke out in one of the dorms, the one MFS is in, but it was on the other side of the building and there wasn’t much damage. Of course, I hear about all of this after the fact, and not from MFS.)

So she proceeds to tell me about the student that said he had anthrax and was going to blow up an engineering building. Ok, well, it’s an engineering college, most of the buildings are engineering.

I go looking around the internet and find some information. Turns out it happened at 0230 and they believe the white powdery substance was powered sugar. Twenty three people were decontaminated just to be on the safe side. Bomb squads and even Homeland Security were called in. That also turned out to be a hoax.

The graduate student is in custody and “may” face charges. His name has not been released, although it has been said he is an international student.

Even Lovi called later, wanting to know if I had heard from MFS. Of course not. I ended up calling him later myself. “Gee Son, thanks for keeping your poor mother informed about what’s going on. It’s been on national news.” He said, “Really? I didn’t know that. It really wasn’t a big deal.” “Uh huh, and you didn’t call your mother because……it wasn’t a big deal? Or you were in isolation for exposure to anthrax?” “Well it happened two in the morning, I wasn’t anywhere around.” “I see. And a bomb couldn’t be set on a timer for when students were in the building? Do you have classes in that building?” “Yeah, that’s where I have calc every day.”

Lord, give me strength.

Flo

Mr. Unique

That describes My Favorite Son. He has to do everything differently. He’d probably be very upset if I told him that his current “I don’t think I want to do what I’ve been planning on doing, and now I don’t know what I want to do” stage is not uncommon.

He likes to wear t-shirts that say things like: “Everybody needs to believe in something….I believe I’ll have another,” “I’m not a hunter, I’m a wildlife population control specialist,” “It’s time for some jolly, by golly,” or “Hard work never killed anyone, but why take a chance?”

Once I saw a button hanging loosely from his pants. I grabbed hold and was going to cut it off when he said: “NO, I like it that way!”

Last May was a big month for him—high school graduation and he turned 18. Naturally, cakes were part of the celebration. I asked him to cut the graduation cake. Not an unusual request, very straightforward, don’t you think? “Here’s the knife, please cut the cake.”

Like a good child, he cut the cake. However, instead of nice, straight, even lines, he cut crooked and curved lines. On purpose. Nobody got a normal looking piece of cake.

The Awards Banquet for the track team happened to fall on his 18^th birthday, so we brought a cake along. He wasn’t allowed to get near the knife that time. Instead, he blew out the candles. One………at…………a………time.

[sigh] What’s a mom to do?

Flo