DD: Because of the extreme amount of testing these days, it’s amazing they’re learning anything. (Third week of school, and I haven’t done any real teaching yet…swear to God!)

Peter: I actually had to argue with a young cashier recently when she tried to give me change, and handed over a Sacajawea coin instead of a quarter. And a substitute cleaning guy at my school threw his broom between the lunch tables (with classes at them) when told not to be texting and get back to work.

I’m not the perfect parent but my kids read and write. They can make change when the electricity is out. Without any other skills that puts them ahead of, what? Fifty percent of the kids in the country? More? Less? I dunno. When I retired from the Dept I took several other jobs until my health put me out to pasture. I do not know how many kids I met that could not get it through their heads that being on the job was not the time to spend hours on the phone with BF/GF. Or that the shift started at four PM, not five fifteen.

Not that there aren’t dead wood teachers but there are also a helluva lot of stars, too.

In the last few years I’ve come to understand the love-hate approach my teachers took to kids like me and Calvin. Horror at actually teaching them, but a savored memory (like any trauma safely past) in retrospect.

Pam: I’d like to think that if I were that wealthy I wouldn’t buy such a car for a KID!

Bou: We bought a used FORD F-250 diesel because we have teens who drive…not FOR her in particular, because it’s a family car. But it’s a safe vehicle, especially since we drive about 30 miles to school/work everyday…down roads at highway speeds. The other car our kids can drive is our older Suburban. Big, safe, and sturdy. Harder to park, maybe, as my daughter found out, but safer. And we don’t worry about the scratches and bumps and stuff. The driver of the Mercedes told his daughter that my daughter needed to get her head out of her ass. Seems to me he needs to do that himself.

I had a friend in high school… she hit 16 and her parents gifted her with a brand new Trans Am. Pretty powerful stuff, eh? She hit the garage almost every day just backing it out, not to mention all the little ‘incidents’ suffered on other people’s vehicles.

I don’t understand giving kids brand new mega bucks vehicles. But then, I’m not wealthy, either..

Yes, I lol’d. Sorry.