Select Page

The phone rang. Caller ID says it was Prima Donna Daughter’s school calling. Oh boy – what now? I answer and this familiar, but atypically meek little voice says, “Mom, it’s me. I’m in Ms. Holland’s office at school. I was holding my scissors in my hand in class and accidentally cut off my eyebrow. Will you come and get me?”

WTF??!!??

“You what??!!?? How do you cut off an eyebrow??!!?? Are you ok? And no, I can’t come get you – I have an appointment this afternoon and there won’t be anybody to stay with you.”

“I can stay in my room, Mom. I have my book on my face because I don’t want anybody to see. Pleeeeeeease come get me,” says PDD

“No, I’m not coming to get you. If you cut off your eyebrow, it’s not going to grow back in a day, and you have to go to school tomorrow, so there’s no point. How ’bout I bring an eyebrow pencil down to the school and draw it back on for you?” says the ingenious, ready-for-anything mother that I am.

“Ok! Can you come right now?” asks a relieved PDD.

“Be there in a minute,” says me.

So I get my eyebrow pencil, take it to the school and expect to find an eyebrow-less Muppet version of my daughter waiting for me in Ms. Holland’s office. What I find, instead, is what looks like a pluck job gone bad. Both eyebrows had bald spots.

As I fill in PDD’s eyebrows, Ms. Holland and I discuss how it is one cuts off one’s eyebrows ‘by accident’, both of us doing our level best to remain matter-of-fact and not bust out laughing. This is, after all, a sensitive issue for a prepubescent girl of almost 9. We look at each other with our own unscalped eyebrows knit together in amazement.

Upon finishing, PDD asks for a mirror to check my work, proclaims it satisfactory and bounces up out of the chair ready to go back to class. Problem solved, crisis averted, Mom banks brownie points for saving the day.

In all my 20+ years of motherhood, this one takes the prize for most bizarre phone call from a school.