Today I was in a black mood again, because it was time to get Kelly’s TB test read, and then return to grovel at the school district enrollment office. I figured if I did everything the very first thing in the morning, I might have a chance for making up for it with a better rest of the day.
No such luck. The Indian Health Center had abruptly decided to open an hour later (with no notice). But, then, it is the native American health center, so it just figures they’d be running on Indian time. It would take just as long to go home and turn around as to wait, so we waited, and waited, and waited. As anyone who’s been in one knows, time deliberately passes more slowly in clinics and hospitals. Finally, at 9:30, Kelly had her test read, and we dashed to the enrollment center.
Peter had wasted 4 hours of his life waiting to be told that a test Kelly had already done was out of date and had to be done again, so he’d wrested a name and a promise that he wouldn’t have to wait hours again to deliver the finished paperwork. How do you think that worked out?
I walked into the enrollment center, and got the attention of a grumpy bureaucrat about our unique information. “Put your name on the list,” she said, dourly. But, but, but, I had a name! And we’d already done this! “Put your name on the list,” she said, dourly.
By this point my bitterness and resentment towards San Jose Unified was palpable. Kelly was annoyed at something another little girl in the waiting room did, and I growled at her, “get used to it, that’s public school for you.” Hey, I thought to myself, if that girl stabs you now, it’ll really be like public school. I analyzed a little boy in the room. Sociopath? Not obviously. Jaw-droppingly stupid? Not discernably. I sent the boy a dagger stare of hate anyway.
Perhaps the black cloud I had brought in was having an effect. One of the parents left, child in tow, and was missing when his name was called for the appointment. The dour bureaucrat must have noticed, because she suddenly was interested in the name Peter’d been given, and ushered me back to be taken care of ASAP.
Papers were shuffled and copied, and there was a brief theatre of a lost original, whereupon I dumped everything out of my folder and spread it around. The clerk discovered she’d had the lost original all along. So supposedly, Kelly is in the “lottery” for a space at the one school that wasn’t in-house training for future serial killers and their victims, at least not when Neil went there.
At least now, the farce is out of our hands. In May, we’ll get the notice undoubtedly telling us she’s 100th or 2ooth or 300th on the list, and we can suck it. And Kelly will cry, because once again she won’t be in a classroom with other little girls, because she’s certainly not going to the neighborhood school again. But the farce will end.
On the positive side, today at park day, one of the other moms (with a 5 year old daughter for Kelly to play with), told me about a girl scout troop. It’ll be yet another social activity that’s not as good as institutional schooling for Kelly’s interest, but it will be something. And it may take some of the hurt off.