I got to go through over 300 papers that came home in the kids' backpacks last night. After sorting through them, I found only five that I really needed to see.
Contained in those five pieces of paper were what amounted to the schedule for every second of my time for the rest of the month.
Dear School,
I have tried all year to hold my tongue, but I hate you.
I hate your 300 papers.
I hate your stupid homework.
I hate your weekly letters telling me how to parent.
I hate your monthly menu with a grocery list of healthy food for me to buy at home.
I hate your month of May, into which you have crammed every extra activity for every child for the entire school year.
I hate your recorded messages that urge me to send more dollars to the school for the kids to buy stinky pencils to benefit the PTA.
Oh, I hate your PTA.
I hate your presidential addresses.
I HATE YOUR STINKING GUTS, School.
I am not one of those parents who just wants to drop their kids off somewhere every day for free. I would like to see my kids and know which friend taught them the latest butt joke so I can make them quit talking to that disgusting kid. I want to see what they look like when they wake up in the morning because they want to instead of because they're going to get yelled at.
I want to take a Monday folder and use it to start a bonfire in the backyard. I want to have one free evening without thinking about you at all.
You can consider this summer to be a very bad break up between the two of us. I will burn all your pictures and letters, I will ignore your phone calls and emails, I will lose contact with everyone I've met through you, and I will only think of you to remember how bad it used to be, and even that will be seldom.
Oh sure, I'll be back. It's the cycle of an abusive relationship, after all. But I know who you are and I know you won't change. You'll eat away at my freedom until I can't take it anymore, and I'll leave again. And then, School, that will be the last time.
Finally, School, I want all my stuff back. You can leave it at the front door, please. I need my 160 evenings back that I wasted on goofball homework and projects. I need my dining room table back, which has been covered with your propaganda for eight months. I need all the peace I nurtured into my kids over the summer, only to have thrown out the window with your high-stress teaching styles.
I need six sweet innocent faces smiling at breakfast, because they have been ruined with bullying and pressure and spoiled rotten other-peoples'-kids and work work work. Please pack this up nicely and I will pick it up on the last day of class.
At last, School, Goodbye.
Very Sincerely,
MannyRee
