I posted on Twitter that I was sad about the Alien Child.... He'd taken this semester off to save up some money for another year of college, and to pay for traffic tickets he's got because of getting into an accident in icy driving conditions, but was fired from his job. This is why:
He was at a party, and an acquaintance's girlfriend suddenly became hysterical. Turns out this acquaintance had become severely injured and was bleeding to death. The Alien Child--being the Eagle Scout that he is--jumps into action, uses his hands as a tourniquet, yells for someone to call 911, and keeps clamping on the artery until the medics come, stays with the acquaintance at the hospital until he's kicked out.
He gets no sleep, and in the morning I get a completely freaked out call from the AC, because he has to go to work and tell the frankly off-the-wall boss that the acquaintance is in the hospital and can't come to work, and he'd like to come into work just a little late so that he can get some sleep before his shift. He's freaked out about the blood that was all over him and the room and how he had to clean it up, and now he was on his way to work worried that his boss was going to be unreasonable, because that's the way the guy is.
The boss cuts him off, says he doesn't want any excuses and fires him--and the acquaintance who is in the hospital--on the spot.
So now my kid doesn't have a job. It's been over 2 weeks, and he's applied to 40 jobs--he said from the beginning that he'd treat job hunting like a full-time job in itself, and he has.
The crazy thing is, this is the 5th time since he's been at college that he's intervened in a medical emergency. This is the 3rd time I know of that he's saved a life. I'd think it was all made up if some good life-long friends of ours hadn't seen him jump into action when their son fell down in a first-time grand mal epileptic seizure. I told him, why don't you just become an EMT and get paid for this? Because he sure doesn't get thanks for it, and when it comes to helping someone in an emergency or going to class or the job, he chooses calling 911 for whoever he finds is in a diabetic coma, alcohol poisoning, or seizure. You know what the freakiest thing in the world for a mom is? To be in the middle of a phone call with your kid and then hearing him say, "sorry, Mom, I have to hang up and call 911. Bye."
Okay, I would prefer he save a life and lose a job/miss a class, but who is going to believe that excuse, even if it's true? Nobody, that's who. Everyone knows college kids are just slackers these days, and their parents are all helicopter parents.
Well, hell. Between a military dad and a Samurai mom, I grew up pretty tough, and don't hold with slackers, certainly not in my offspring. He's a damned hard worker, the first to jump in if someone needs help. But with the bad economy and this unpaid traffic violation, who knows if he'll be able to get a job? He can't even go on unemployment because he's 5 hours short of the requirement. And he refuses to ask for even a loan from us.
I hate this. I purely hate this.
End of rant.
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