And It's A Damn Good Thing

Leo generally refuses to wear a coat to school. It long ago became one of those choose-your-battles kind of things, and God knows we have plenty of others battles. I take some comfort in seeing scores of other high schoolers stupidly refusing to wear coats as well. This morning however? It is 14 degrees outside and while we'll drop him off this morning, he has to walk home this afternoon.

We start by going through the drama of trying to find a coat that still fits him. I soon realize that we have a stack of coats we need to give to Goodwill. We find one...it's not super heavy but will be o.k. Then Leo announces, after going along with finding a coat to wear, that he can't take it because he doesn't have a locker.

"What do you mean you don't have a locker?" 

He looks at us wearily and says, "They gave me a locker that does not exist."

Repeated questioning makes him more irate. "The locker they gave me DOES NOT EXIST! There's nothing with that number." I try asking if there's a locker on either side of one with, uh, closely related numbers. I get nowhere. When queried as to why he never ASKED about his locker, he calmly explains that he doesn't need a locker. 

I respond like the mature adult I am, "Well, you do NOW, don't you?"

The conversation pretty much went downhill from there. I started on a parental tirade about learning to advocate for yourself. Leo, as Ernie perfectly explained later, just stared at us like we were the crazy ones. I sighed and stuffed the coat into the back of his backpack. The same backpack that he assured me was too small for high school earlier this fall. I immediately went and ordered a larger backpack because hey, anything for Leo. As I was stuffing the coat into the backpack, I said, "Wait, is this the new backpack?" He said no, it wasn't, because this one was fine. "Then WHY did I order the other one?" I yelled. I just got another one of those looks.

Good God I love that child.

I could not possibly love him more.

And it's a damn good thing.

the school with imaginary lockers....