just do it

How can I capture that tone?

"Ms. PppppPPPPpppPpPPPPpppPPppppPpppppp," is a whine that rises and falls, a failed wheedle that tightens my shoulders. A mistake. It is a too-common greeting before 7:30 a.m., an ungodly hour for conversation, let alone begging, let alone demanding, let alone insisting that all one's problems should go elsewhere for blame.

"I need a new geometry teacher." It's the second week of the semester.

"No." Even if it were possible, it wouldn't happen. "Besides, you said you liked him."

"Not now. He's going to fail me. He wants to." And with that, the button's pushed.

"Do we really have to have this conversation?" I want to say. "Do we really have to do this?" Do I really have to say for the six hundredth time that nobody wants kids to fail and that a 41 on a test in a class that you've skipped is not the teacher's fault?

I log in, pull up the grades, point out the zeroes and listen to him cling to an alternate reality where telling the teacher that attendance is none of his business has no consequence, where paying attention is entirely optional and effort is not required. We both are frustrated, him because he wants it to be easy, me because he's making it hard.

"Your grade. Your graduation. Your responsibility." The dreaded "R" word pulls the trigger:

"I don't care!"

"If you didn't, you wouldn't be in here," I say, and he raises his eyes to the ceiling with the universal adolescent gesture for, "why won't you do what I want?" The bell rings and the round ends. He walks away muttering, and I stand silent, resetting. It is 7:40 in the morning.