Skip to main content

The Best Laid Plans, part 2

This is a sequel to Monday's post about Drama English and the worst person I've ever met.

In life there are certain phone calls that you dread. Ones you have a premonition of before they ever happen, or the moment the phone rings, you know something terrible has happened. Maybe a loved one has been in the hospital, maybe your child was out late and the phone rings past midnight, maybe your significant other has…something to tell you. Whatever it may be, these exist.

Let me tell you about the call I just had.

I sometimes fear the worst when a boss calls. I know that’s kind of childish of me, but I do. In fleeting moments, I still fear authority and don’t want to “get in trouble” or whatever it’s called as an adult. So when my phone rang this morning and it was my supervisor - she's my boss, but it's not as if she comes to my lessons or anything. She's more of a tutor-pimp - from one of the lessons, I had a long “should I answer?” debate with myself.

Ultimately, I did.

She had spoken with some of the parents of the drama class from hell. A few of them were interested in continuing although they acknowledged that the first lesson sounded like a bit of chaos.

The one, the terrible one who ruined my day and most of my week, apparently had been so worn out after class that his mother thought maybe it was too much for him and he shouldn’t continue.

THAT’S RIGHT. THE WORST KID ON EARTH WOULD NOT BE CONTINUING.

And then it just kept coming: one of the moms wanted to nix her kid’s enrollment because she was not allowed to go into the school and watch the class. I told her she could watch for a couple of minutes but not the whole time, but the school told her she couldn’t watch at all and had to wait outside the building. Nailed it. That kid’s gone.

Suddenly, she informed me that, maybe instead of just having three students, we’ll just cancel it altogether. The group wasn’t right, and it would be brutal to put on a show given the motley crew that had now been assembled.

My eyes lit up. No more of this class from hell? No more of the worst kid I’ve met since my own childhood? No more of …well, that was most of it, I guess. But I was really psyched that this kid was out of my life and seemingly will be forever.


What I’m trying to say is that there are bad news calls and there are good news calls and this was probably the best call I’ve gotten in a while. Even better, it seems as though there’s going to be a replacement lesson (which will be difficult, I know already) that will be longer and thus more profitable for me. Not a bad swing, huh?

The moral of the story, I guess, is to pick up the phone when it rings. Opportunity comes in all shapes and sizes, and sometimes it comes in the size of a six-year-old leaving your life forever and ever and it's the best thing. I hope his mother isn't reading this, but in case she is, I hope she knows how terrible her son is.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

I Have to Write about Basketball

I have about an hour to write out my thoughts about the NBA Finals since I didn't want to at 1 a.m. and I have to be at work soon (and I'll be there for a longer-than-normal day). So here goes. 1) Everyone wants to talk about Steph Curry, and everyone should  be talking about Steph Curry. I don't get it. He's the best shooter in NBA history - although Klay Thompson is hot on his heels - and yet there's something amiss at surprising times. I don't believe in "clutch" the way a lot of people do, because if Steph doesn't hit a million threes all the time, the Warriors are never in position for him to take a game-winner in the Finals (they also don't make the Finals). All of them are worth three points, so they need the first one as much as they need the last one. But something kind of happens, doesn't it? And doesn't it affect his legacy a tiny bit? Steph shot 34.3% on three-pointers this series. Toronto was all over  him defensivel...

Vienna Christmas, part 1

When I last left you, the two Koniecznys were about to arrive and we were going to do...well, something. And a week later we were all going to Vienna for Christmas to see some of my family members who live there (one of them is Norbert, who you might remember from canyoning). Carly and her mom got in on Sunday and we just kinda hung out the first day or two, but they wanted to see the sights and took off to see some nearby things and places, which is something they might tell you about if they were blogging but I don't think they are. Anyway, the real excitement started at the end of the week. Carly and her mom took an overnight train to Vienna on Thursday/Friday and Jenna and I had to wait until Saturday to go. We took a two-layover train; once in Verona to turn to the north and then a second stop in Innsbruck to switch onto an Austrian (OBB) train that would swoop through southeastern Germany en route to Vienna. It was a nearly 12 hour day of trains and, believe it or not, it...

New Year's Eve

One thing that seems to be a true worldwide phenomenon is the realization that my last name is used on New Year's Eve signs around the globe. At first I felt slighted, as if someone were cheapening the worth of my last name. In more recent years I've taken is as a weird sort of compliment and even occasionally tried to make it into a pseudo-attention-getting thing if I'm feeling very "look at me" on a particular day. But that's not what I'm supposed to tell you about because that's boring. What's not boring is that most of the big cities around the world do big exciting fireworks displays and celebrations that stretch way beyond a ball dropping down a pole and standing in a crowd of 500,000 people for nine hours. In short, New Year's in the states generally blows. In the northern US you either go overpay by insane amounts to go to a bar and then wait for three hours for a cab back home or you go to a friend's house and it's...fine. ...