The. Worst.

 

A week ago, Elijah got exposed to COVID. One of his pals breathed their evil funk breath on him at lunch. Better safe than sorry, we kept him home for a few days. His symptoms included videogame addiction and making a huge mess in the kitchen. 

It quickly morphed from safely quarantining to just skipping school. So we forced him kicking and screaming back to high school. 

We had a few hours of peace and quiet and then we got a text:

ELI: What is happening? We are on lockdown.

DIANA: I have no idea. Is it because of COVID?

ELI: I’m really scared.

DIANA: Are classes still going on?

ELI: No we are huddled in the corner…If anything happens, I love you.

What the ever loving FUCK??? The worst text exchange a parent can possibly have. A living nightmare. Is this the world we exist in now? Our beautiful, smart, funny, caring baby hiding in the corner of a geometry classroom because of a gun in the goddamn school? Sorry for the swears. But if there was ever a time to introduce swearing into HamannEggs this is it.

We quickly found out that Evanston police had swarmed the school. There was a gun “incident” but it didn’t look like an active shooter. Thank the lord. But neither we nor Eli could be 100% sure it wasn’t turning into hell on earth. 

We kept texting him. Telling him we loved him. Asking him if there was people in the room he could hold hands with. Yeah, is there someone you can hold hands with in case this is your last moment on earth? We told him to do whatever the police said and under no circumstances should he put himself in any danger. 

He kept his sense of humor in his personal nightmare, texting us about his feet falling asleep and making (in hindsight some not great 9/11) jokes. I assured him when he got home he could have his first glass of wine. 

Luca eventually joined the text exchange, as he was on a soft lockdown because of the mess. He showed us a picture of a robot he drew with rectangular nipples. We discussed the benefits of rectangular robot nipples for a while.

Things eventually calmed down and we got the details. Apparently some idiots were smoking weed in the boys’ bathroom and got busted. When searched, a few guns were found. Morons. Jackasses. Blockheads. Fuckwits. 

Can you imagine the avalanche of excrement that is going to rain down on those kids’ heads? Just because they wanted to be cool weed dealers? Not to mention the army of Karens who will descend on the school administration. 

They sent everyone home for the rest of the year. Our last text on the subject was:

ELI: I think we should go see the new Spider-Man movie tonight.

You bet your ass we went.