It was usually about 8:45 on a rainy Sunday night when the drama began.
One of my boys would burst into the den, chest heaving like he had just run the final leg of an Olympic relay. His face looked like he had just seen a boa constrictor in the bathroom.
Once he caught his breath, he began pleading as if he were asking the governor for a last-minute pardon.
“Mom! Dad! I’ve got a social studies project due tomorrow, and I’ve got to have a piece of white poster board.”
Predictably, it was about 15 minutes before the store closed.
If you’ve ever had kids in school, you know the rest of the story.
It’s closely related to staying up all night on Christmas Eve assembling toys – except this is even more frustrating because it could’ve been avoided.
“Son, how long have you known about this?”
“Huh?”
“How long have you known about this project?”
“I dunno… about two weeks, I guess.”
Truthfully, it had probably been at least a month. But hey, what’s a couple of weeks? One thing he did seem to know for sure is that the project was due at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.
Meanwhile, I was in the middle of a Netflix show.
“Why don’t you just find an old piece of poster board downstairs and turn it over?” I suggested. “Use the back.”
He gave me a look like he was about to call the department of human resources.
“I can’t do that! When you turn it over you can see the print from the other side. Mrs. Benford will count off.”
“Well then, why didn’t’t we pick one up on the way home from church today?”
“Because I was too busy thinking about Jesus.”
“Well, I suggest you need to start praying to Jesus, because I am not getting up to go buy poster board you should’ve bought this afternoon. It’s about time you learned a lesson.”
Seeing me take a hard line, he naturally turned to the weak link, my wife Carol. I couldn’t help noticing she was already getting out of her chair.
“Mom! Please! I’ll make an F! And she’s going to hang up all the posters for Open House next week and I’ll be the only person that doesn’t have one.”
Playing on her emotions, he worked her like a two-piece puzzle.
Before grabbing her keys, Carol went through the standard parental search routine. First stop was the junk drawer. Every house has one. Ours contained about a dozen dried-up Bic pens, birthday candles, coupons that expired during the Clinton administration, a broken stapler and a couple of dried-out highlighters. Next was the kitchen cabinet where school supplies were supposed to live. There was nothing but a couple of notebooks, and several old glue sticks that wouldn’t glue anything. Finally, she checked the garage, which is apparently where poster board goes to die. Nada.
At that point, she realized what she probably knew from the start: time to go to the store.
“Oh, come on – but you’re getting out to buy it.”
Way to take a tough stand, Carol. You showed him.
About 30 minutes later they returned from the emergency poster board run. If you’ve ever been in a store late on a Sunday night you know exactly who was there: other moms and dads wandering the aisles with the same glazed look in their eyes, each clutching a piece of poster board like it’s the last life jacket on the Titanic.
What nobody talks about is the silent understanding that exists between those parents in the store. Nobody makes eye contact. Nobody asks questions. We all know exactly why the others are there.
One dad was standing there staring at a rack of markers like he’s trying to decipher the Dead Sea Scrolls. Another mom is frantically flipping through a pack of construction paper like a dealer shuffling at a Vegas blackjack table.
Every now and then you hear somebody mutter something under their breath like, “It said they needed glitter…”
Glitter. At 8:57 on a rainy Sunday night.
There ought to be a special aisle for parents who just found out about the project tonight.
I digress. Soon, I heard noises coming from the dining room, which doubles as the school-project assembly center. Drawers opening. Cabinets closing. A closet door slamming.
Eventually, my son ambled back into the den, hanging his head like a man who had just lost his stay of execution.
“I forgot to get any markers.”
And so, the following week during Open House, everyone admired his poster of the American colonies – done entirely in pencil.
Fortunately, Mrs. Benford didn’t deduct points for a lack of color. She said it looked historically accurate.
Joe Hobby is a barbecue-loving comedian from Alabama who wrote for Jay Leno for many years. Find more of Joe’s stories on his blog: www.mylifeasahobby.blogspot.com. Follow him on Facebook at Joe Hobby Comedian-Writer.
