The Sick Line

In our school district, each school has a designated phone line to call when your child is going to be absent.  Our schools ask the usual three million questions that they want answered in your message.  You know, things like:

Your child's name, spelling both first and last name
child's grade
School ID #
Soc. Sec #
Blood Type
Grade they are getting in PE
Reason for being absent (they want a description here)

Here is where they add:

"Due to our ongoing efforts, if your child is experiencing flu like symptoms or has a fever, please let us know."

Your Name
Your relation to the student
a phone number where you can be reached
your blood type
your grade in English in Sophomore year of high school
The name of your first pet

I think you get the picture.

My kids don't get sick that often, but, I have the replies down.  RT, on the other hand, ends up leaving some strange messages.  He usually calls twice.  The first time is to write down all the questions.  The second time is to leave a message with as little details as possible.  I think he gets the part correct when he states his name.  I'm not sure about the child's name, tho.  We haven't had any call backs from the school (that I know of), so I think his sick messages have worked.

With such a long, detailed message, it's very easy to get distracted.  Once you leave your message, you feel this sense of victory.  "Hey!  I successfully left a message on the sick line!"  You want to shout it out to the world!  You feel like you can do anything now.

Climb Mount Everest?

No problem!

Sail around the world?

Easy!

Write a best selling novel?

Piece of cake!

Remember that you have a sick kid at home to take care of today?

What?  Who's sick?