Today, as I was leaving for the day, I was accosted in the parking lot by a wild-eyed mom.
Wild- Eyed Mom: "DO YOU WORK HERE?!!!"
Mrs. Grumpy: "Um, yes..."
Wild-Eyed Mom: "YOU'VE GOT TO HELP ME! MY SON IS MISSING! PLEASE!"
I text the twins I'll be a few minutes late. I take her to my office, turn the computer back on to get records (which takes effing forever, thanks Windows), and dial up a security guard to come help.
Mrs. Grumpy: "Okay, what's his name?"
Wild-Eyed Mom (hysterical, but trying to calm down) "Claude Rains."
Mrs. Grumpy: "All right, let me see if any reports are in... When did you last hear from him?"
Wild-Eyed Mom: "When he got home from school."
Mrs. Grumpy: "Wait... So he's already been home?"
Wild-Eyed Mom: "Yes. He got home from school, and was watching TV, and I went to go shower. When I came out he was gone!"
Mrs. Grumpy: "Okay, so you came back to the school even though you knew he'd gotten home safely from there?"
Wild-Eyed Mom: "Yes! Isn't this what you people do?"
Before I could answer the computer stopped searching.
Mrs. Grumpy: "You said Claude Rains? We don't have a Claude Rains in the database."
Wild-Eyed Mom: "Oh... He just texted me. He's back home now. He went to help a friend who had a flat bike tire. What did you say?"
Mrs. Grumpy: "He's not in our database."
Wild-Eyed Mom: "Well, he doesn't go to this school."
Mrs. Grumpy: "Then why..."
Wild-Eyed Mom: "He goes to Daniel Simpson Day Middle School."
Mrs. Grumpy: "That's not even in this district... Why did you come here? Do you live nearby?"
Wild-Eyed: "No, I figured you guys had better computers and stuff that could find him."
Mrs. Grumpy: "We..."
Wild-Eyed: "Obviously, I was wrong. I wish you'd have just told me that in the first place."
She left.
19 comments:
W T F!
Missing kid. Do you:
a) Call his mobile
b) Check with neighbours, then start calling all his friends
c) Call the cops
d) Panic, run outside and stand in the road screaming his name
or
e) drive to a random school in another district, and ask a random staff member to look him up on the computer system.
Why would that even cross her mind as a solution?
Well, in case you did NOT ask, we ARE in the business of developing minds, not necessarily looking for those minds that go missing, dear lady.
Did you call child protective services
Obviously, we take missing kids very seriously. BUT - where do we ALWAYS search first before we go into panic mode? The kid's house. If I told you how often we find the kid sleeping, hiding, playing, etc. still inside the home, you wouldn't believe me.
I think the Grumpy family lives in Florida, in fact I am sure of it.
How long was she in the shower is what I want to know, and where she was before she showered, and whether there was 'anything' in the shower soap. The poor woman is obviously 'upset', and something seems to have been displaced recently. I've had traumatic moments with seeming 'misplaced' and lost children, dogs and last month a cat that lost herself in the garage, but to go completely bonkers is another thing.
It took a full minute for me to scrape my lower jaw off the floor after reading this one.
Officer Cynical, When my autistic son went missing, after kicking myself for not being a helicopter parent, I did an inch-by-inch search of the apartment. I was praying that he had not gotten outside. It was winter and his jacket was on its peg.
Sure enough, he was wedged in a cubbyhole in the back of my closet.
Good thing I found him -- I was two and a half minutes away from being the woman in the Skool Nerse story.While funny, and the woman was clearly wrong, she was scared and that DOES things to moms.
Me? I'm no one. I'm the Invisible Man.
it's a good thing she left...before you gave in to the temptation to administer a much needed "dope slap" to this mother...sometimes the fact that the general public places a great deal of trust in nurses is not always good for the nurses.
Mrs Grumpy,
You need to have your deadbeat husband find a better job, so you can retire from that school madhouse.
Yikes. Dangerous to let someone so unbalanced into the building. Have you heard about the school nurse who was held up in her office at gunpoint by a student who wanted drugs?
@Officer Cynical: Oh yes I would.
I read the Not Always Right and sister sites, and this woman sounded so much like some of those clueless customers that I feel very sorry for any retail workers that have to deal with her. Especially if she's this much a twit to Mrs. Grumpy, who is in a position that hopefully commands some respect.
Now I'm imagining Mrs. Grumpy's reaction to the dingbat of a school staff member in the Not Always Learning story "An Epi Epic Fail". Staff member didn't administer an epipen because mom "lives a few doors down" (but was on her way to work!), even though the kid's file had a letter and specific instructions on the phone from mom when the staff member called her not fifteen minutes before to use the thing now.
Very often, I facepalm myself far, far harder than I need to, because the other choice is to headslap or choke somebody...
I can only imagine the type of drugs this woman takes.
Someone watched too much CSI etc. Better computers? Her reasoning is so crazy. XD
I wouldn't start by checking with my kid's actual school if they'd been home between school and missing. I certainly wouldn't think that a school they don't attend would be able to help.
The woman is a clueless idiot, and I hope her child survives her tender ministrations. On the other hand if he/she doesn't, it will probably improve the gene pool.
I was 20 years old. I'd been employed for years, lived with my parents. I had my first serious adult career sort of job. Salaried. Weeks of vacation. I took a two week motorcycle trip back to my childhood hometown, saw friends I missed, slowly worked my way back. Got home and found I had been reported missing. Evidently I had not called home as often as expected (1998) and Mom got worried.
Sometimes, you're in the wrong place at the wrong time and look like you could answer a question.
The story of my life. So sorry Mrs. Grumpy. At least it had a happy ending.Regh
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