Warning!

Oh the land that is Heather is never a dull place to be. There is always some crisis or some drama that is worthy of a soap opera....today was no different.

The text message was simple: "I'm dead."

Well, considering the fact that my daughter actually had full use of her digits and was able to send a text message, I was pretty certain that she was slightly over exaggerating her situation.

However, the fact that she sent the text message to her father instead of to me lent to the fact that she was of the understanding that her life could very well be in some jeopardy.

"Oh crap," I said and flipped open my handy-dandy online planner. "It's time for mid-terms."

Exactly 3 minutes and 32 seconds later the school bus was pulling to a stop in front of our house and I could literally feel my daughter clench when she saw my car already parked in the driveway.

She walked into the backdoor as silently as possible, and without saying a word I held out my hand.

Still speechless she reached into her backpack and pulled out a single sheet of purple paper, placed it into my hand then stepped far outside of my reach.

"It's that bad?" her dad asked standing in the doorway.

From the corner of my eye I could see her nervously chewing on her fingernail and I looked down at the purple piece of paper.

Social Studies - A
Language - A
Tech. Ed. - A
Science - B
Health/PE - A
Journalism - A
Math - D

"You understand that math is a required subject?" I asked calmly.

She nodded, still chewing on her fingernail.

I sought hard for the right words. Should I threaten her? Should I punish her? Should I demand that she try harder? Should I just yell and scream until my face turned 14 shades of red and purple?

In a single second I chose an entirely different approach: rationalization.

"Explain to me," I said, "how it is possible that you can spend countless hours on Myspace chatting with your friends, send more than a thousand text messages every month, and use 400 sheets of paper writing notes to your newest BFF, but you can't seem to find the time to study your math?"

"Cause," she paused briefly, "that stuff is hard."

"Then work harder at it."

"But...." she stammered, "it's really really hard."

"Then ask for help."

"But what if you don't have the answer?"

"Then the giant answer box sitting in the kitchen can be used to help you out."

She looked at me puzzled for a second then smiled as I watched the dim light bulb appear over her head.

"You mean the computer don't you?"

"Yep."

"It does math?"

That does it....
I'm buying that kid a t-shirt that says:
"WARNING: I'm really a blonde"