Pardon my lack of attention to this here blog. I've come down with senioritis, which strikes parents of high school seniors midway through their son or daughter's senior year. It's a debilitating disease, responsible for the deterioration of brain cells just when they're needed most.
We suddenly find ourselves rushing to the post office to mail a last minute college application, haranguing the school counselor for yet another official transcript for yet another scholarship app. Our eyes eventually cross from reading endless drafts of essays, while we belatedly realize a more angst-filled upbringing would have provided much more thrilling reading.
Our formerly independent and capable seniors become helpless in the face of adversity, such as calculus assignments. Suddenly a spotless twelve year record of never missing a school bus is broken, requiring already stressed parents to jaunt across the motorways at rush hour. Crying jags increase at a pace not seen since puberty hit in middle school—best stock up on tissues. Ominous signs of immaturity appear in our senior students, causing parents to briefly contemplate dropping that college application in the rubbish bin rather than the post box.
But the thought of another year with our seniors puts an end to any such nonsense, and we shoulder on, hoping other senior parents give up by the time scholarship deadlines roll around in March, leaving the field wide open for our own hapless seniors.
Note: If you are in charge of a scholarship committee, please, have pity on us parents. Five essays will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about my student, trust me. You're better off with one, on some universal and recyclable theme like What I Did On My Summer Vacation. And those deadlines—appropriately named, when the nearest FedEx facility is located at Heathrow, near the deadliest motorways in Britain at rush hour. Do you really want my blood on your hands, or can it wait until tomorrow?
Senior leisure activities are about to kill us too. Prom committee, senior breakfast, senior awards ceremonies, field trips—all designed to test our suitability as parents of a college-bound senior, who, as we already mentioned, has suddenly become prone to missing the bus.
Oh damn it. My senior just called. She wants me to email her four essays she wrote last night and left in the printer this morning.
Doesn't she know I have class today? I'm going to be late, and I'm not even a senior!
