House of Eratosthenes

This is me, filling out a form for my son’s field trip. I’ve been known to be ticked off by a lot of things that tick off a lot of other people…on the other hand, I’ve also been known to be confused and befuddled by things that are crystal-clear to everyone else. Over the years, I have learned when I find some matter of interpretation to be confusing, usually you could round up ten randomly-selected people — not only would all ten of them be decidedly un-confused…but eight or nine of them would be at a complete loss to explain how there could possibly have been any ambiguity about it.

I have zip-zero-zilch-bubkes of an idea which one this is. Leave your ideas in the comments below, and don’t worry about being kind. Insults-with-enlightenment, is a package I can use.

All I know right now is, in the course of trying to figure this thing out, my blood pressure must’ve easily doubled…

FORM: Name of student.

ME: Hmm, okay that sounds easy enough… I write kid’s name on form.

Language Advisory FORM: Parent.

ME: Alrightee, then. Morgan K. Freeberg.

FORM: Address.

ME: Oh, I know this one. Address goes in.

FORM: Phone number.

ME: Hmmm…they want to get hold of the kid, or they want to get hold of me. Must be me. I’ll write in the land-line, just in case.

FORM: Date of birth.

ME: Er…okay. Hmm. Um…lessee…yeah, that has to be me. July 15, 1966.

FORM: Age.

ME: (Right eye starting to twitch a little bit.) Let me think on this, now. There’s no way anyone can possibly give a flying fuck that I’m forty-two. They must be asking about the kid. Okay. Eleven. (Scratch scratch scratch scratch scratch…) I hate this form I hate this form I hate this form I hate this form. (Write in date of kid’s birth in the remaining space.)

What’s next?

FORM: Business phone.

ME: Son of a BITCH!! (Furiously scratch out kid’s date-of-birth, kid’s age, and as long as we’re at it, the land-line phone.) These fucking (write in cell phone #) assholes (write in my date-of-birth) don’t know how (write in my age) to make a goddamn (write in business phone) FORM!!!

(Hyperventilating now.)

What else?

FORM: Grade.

ME: GYAAAH!! (Eyes get a weird glow, skin starts glowing green, shirt rips…)

See, some of this frustration is cumulative, and it spills over from the maddening experience of finding Christmas gifts during the shorter days of the years, and movies during the longer ones. I have learned something about how this monstrous thing called a “civilized society” molds and shapes things just before they’re paraded under the eyeballs of these creatures called “parents.” It is not inconsideration. It is not lack of empathy. It is not lack of sympathy, it is not negligence, it is not simple laziness.

It is hatred. Perhaps it’s a subconcious thing, perhaps it’s not, but either way it’s clear to me there is some strong desire to deal injury to parents. Things that should be easy, are artificially difficult…not quite so much time-consuming to any great degree…but migraine inducing. And perhaps there’s nothing passionate about it. Maybe, like something out of The Godfather, it’s all business. Someone, somewhere, has figured out a way to create or accentuate a stream of income by giving migraines to parents…it works in some way that would be neutralized, somehow, if the parents did not receive migraines.

I don’t know how exactly that works.

But I swear to God — it must be there. The mothers, if not the dads, they must know what I’m talking about…especially if their kids were born in late summer. You know how it seems there’s a worldwide conspiracy in place to get you to faint, or vomit, or rupture your bladder as you carry that big ol’ belly around?

Well after the kid pops out and starts breathing air, it’s transferred to the dads. At which time, it becomes more real. Every little thing has that extra surplus of difficulty, or expense, or confusion, just to remind you of your inferior status. Usually it’s “family” movies that make the dad look like an ass, or a klutz, or a dimwit, or a workaholic, or a jerk or an acoholic or a strutting self-important martinet that everyone loathes. Things are two or three times as hard as they need to be. Two or three times as humiliating. Two or three times as frustrating.

Some of the other things are just five-or-ten-percent harder than it seems like they should be. Paradoxically, those are the more frustrating items. Like that damnable school form. It’s like they have to have that little frosting on the cake…some way of getting that middle finger in there.

It’s probably just my imagination.

But if that’s the case…suppose there’s a challenge to design a form more confusing than this one, without making it any more complicated. Would you know how to rise to a challenge like that? Because I wouldn’t be able to do it. If I had decades to think on it I’d never be able to come up with a way to “improve” it. Some form designer, somewhere, not only is childless, but really, really has it in for us.

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School FormFriday, April 17th, 2009

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Friday, April 17th, 2009