Eavesdropping

 .

I needed to talk to my boss and I knew he was in the office so I walked over there.  He was on his cell phone talking so I thought I'd just wait a minute or two and he'd be done.   This is what I heard.

"Why didn't you turn in your homework?"


"Well, you know that's unacceptable.   I'm going to ground you for a week.  Do you understand what that means?  That means if you want to go to ___'s house, you can't go.  If you want to play video games or watch TV, you can't.   You CAN go to church. But you can't do anything else unless your mother says differently."


"When you come home from school, I want you to call me.   I want you to tell me what subjects you have homework in and about how long you think it will take.  Just tell me, I have to do home work in social studies, science, and math and it will take about an hour."


"You can eat a small snack--whatever your mother decides-- and then I want you to start working on your homework until it is done.   When it's done, I want you TO CALL ME BACK, and say Dad, my homework is done.   Do you understand?"


"Tell me what I said."


"Yes, that's right."


"One more thing.  When you go to school tomorrow, I want you to go to your teacher privately and tell her, "Mrs ___, I'm sorry I didn't turn in my homework.  It will never happen again."     And don't ever let it happen again."


"You know that I love you don't you?   I love you.   I'll see you tomorrow night."


"Bye"

When he finished he stood up and walked to the door and I stepped up to ask him what I needed.  He realized I'd heard his conversation and he said:


"It's hard being a Dad 600 miles away."


I said,  "That's just what I was thinking."  

His son is about 12 years old.  He has probably only been back to Missouri a couple times since he has taken this job in July.  He did take a vacation one of those times in order to get his other child, a daughter, off to college.