<p>My S was passesnger in a potentially serious car wreck while in H.S., and there were a total of 4 in the car. Law enforcement arrived and so did ambulance. Fortunately ambulance not needed. Driver cited.
My S joined a pact with the others not to tell, thinking that if they didn’t tell, no one would know.
Ignoring damage to car, law enforcement, ambulance, newspaper report of accident(with pic).
Idiots.</p>
<p>Our S thought it would be a good idea to cut D’s hair (of course NOT his own). Fortunately, hair DOES grow back, but it looked pretty goofy for a while!</p>
<p>S1 – was headed back to school after Thanksgiving Break and LEFT HIS COMPUTER on his bed. Normally it is permanently attached to this child. He realized it after I had dropped him off in Baltimore and returned home. No time to drive back. The week after TG break at his school comprises the last three days of class (for which final assignments were on said computer, and due by Wed.). Fed Ex made a lot of $$.</p>
<p>S1 – a month later – gets back to Chicago after winter break and calls me to say he needs new sneakers. (He had just been home for three weeks and never mentioned this once.) Why didn’t you say something while you were home, I asked. “Well, I just found out duct tape wrapped around my shoes does not hold up so well in the snow.”</p>
<p>S2 – left his passport on the plane in London en route to Moscow. Got to immigration (he had an overnight layover and his hotel was outside of security), realized he didn’t have his passport and talked his way past customs. Did he even think to haul his $$$ back to the plane? Nope. He could have gotten a new US passport in London three days later, but the real problem was not having his Russian visa. Fortunately the plane was still at the gate seven hours later when customer service opened, and a “great bloke” was able to retrieve the passport from the plane. I spent half the night on the phone with S’s program coordinator, the US Embassy in London and United. I am thankful the cleaning crew missed finding his passport after the flight arrived – who knows where it would have wound up!</p>
<p>S2, an Ivy League grad with two degrees, lost his debit card. But that was OK; whenever he needed cash, he’d just go to the local bank branch, show his ID, and withdraw cash.</p>
<p>Fast forward: Said S is headed to New Zealand. Only then did I learn he didn’t have a debit card. “How will you get cash?” I asked. “I’ll just show my ID at the bank,” he answered. Uh, no, that won’t work.</p>
<p>Had to have my sister (whom he was stopping off to see in CA) buy him travelers checks on New Year’s Eve day. Thank goodness the banks were still open – he was due to fly to NZ on New Year night.</p>
<p>My D got out of my car at the airport to go on a high school trip to London and Paris in April with no jacket or raincoat or umbrella. She refused to take anything like that. Came home wearing a chic long sweater, trendy scarf tossed around her neck, sunglasses on top of head. I guess she survived just fine.</p>
<p>^^I guess she didn’t need the coat or umbrella if she bought a scarf, sweater and sunglasses! :)</p>
<p>I was coming up with a list of things for my smart kids, but then I remember the dumbest thing I did as a kid. Or at least one of the dumber things. I used to watch my dad shave in the mirror, making faces while doing it, and it looked so interesting. I was about 8, and decided to try it myself, not realizing that girls without facial hair really shouldn’t shave. I still have some of the scars, though they’re difficult to see.</p>
<p>So…in retrospect, my kids aren’t near as stupid. I will keep my mouth shut about the soon to be fluorescent blue hair for a YMCA competition, right before going to college, and the unsuccessful six month experiment of no flossing (5 cavities).</p>
<p>Dumbest thing my smart beautiful D has done: gone vegetarian before college where the only reason she got off the WL was because of the track/XC coach’s intervention; become severely anemic, and not take her iron pills! Because they hurt her tummy!</p>
<p>I have two smart kids. The younger one has some common sense, the older one . . . not so much. He has put a shirt in the oven to help it dry faster. He has gone three years at college sleeping in a sleeping bed because HEY! IF YOU SLEEP IN A SLEEPING BAG YOU DON’T HAVE TO MAKE A BED!! </p>
<p>I could go on.</p>
<p>Fortunately he is paid well for noodling over stuff I don’t begin to understand and he sort of gets thru life. We like the current girlfriend 
</p>
<p>I worry because he’s deeply sweet and very smart and just so terribly obtuse about so much of life.</p>
<p>I’ve told this story before…smart freshman D (at UCLA) was walking around Beverly Hills one day, and got into a limo with Andy Dick. if you don’t know why that’s dumb, besides the obvious stupidity of getting into a limo with a complete stranger, just google “Andy Dick mugshot”.
Now she cringes every time the name ‘Andy Dick’ is dropped on “30 Rock” (surprisingly often, as he has become a punchline).</p>
<p>We had just upgraded our phones and I gave D her new one. She thanked me with a nice hug and went off about her day. Ten minutes later, I hear screaming. Thinking someone had died, I ran towards the sound. D had put the phone in her back pocket, from which it fell out when she pulled her pants down to use the bathroom. Fortunately, we were still in the warranty phase so we dried the phone off and sent it back for a new one. She doesn’t store her phone in her back pants pocket anymore.</p>
<p>S1 worked as a camp counselor at a boy scout camp. He decided for some reason to try to pop a balloon with his knife. Another counselor decided to help. Knife made minor contact with other kid’s arm. Fortunately, kid was fine, slight bleeding and no stitches needed. My son was fired as having a knife within a certain radius of other people is verboten in scouting and he KNEW it. I hope he’s learned a lesson. It was a good job.</p>
<p>My D is a fairly savvy kid but she floored me recently when we spoke about hitch-hiking. She said she didn’t think it was so bad. I just started screaming at her - “Haven’t I told you about TED BUNDY 800 times?” to which she said “Well, yes, but isn’t he dead?” as if old Ted was the ONLY person in the entire world who’d ever harm a hitch-hiker! My dad used to cut out articles about abducted hitch hikers and show them to me. Most of those stories ultimately turned out to be Ted. I have a healthy fear of hitch-hiking, BUT I grew up in the Bronx, where there’s pretty decent public transportation and never even thought about it. We’re in the suburbs and D doesn’t have a car at college. I still shake when I think that she might have ever considered taking a ride from a stranger.</p>
<p>D1 went to sprig fest at her school, got a tee shirt tan/burn right before senior prom where she was wearing a strapless dress. We tried to fix it with a spray tan, not so much.</p>