It's That College Time of Year

We really need to get better at this.  "We" being my husband and me;  "this" being responding to acceptances to college.  It should be easy, right?  "Wow, you got in!  That's great!  Congratulations!"  It seems so easy.  But in our house, like everything else, it doesn't seem to go the way one would expect.

First, you'd think that since our boy who is applying is our third child, we'd have had some significant practice.  

Nope.

Child #1 only sort-of applied, and to only one school, very late, and it was a school that pretty much accepted anyone who was graduating from high school.  So, there wasn't much practice there.

Child #2 applied for real, and we were very happy with his acceptance, but he applied to only one school, and when he got his acceptance, decided he wasn't going to bother with any more applications.

So on to Child #3.  One day, he got an envelope from a school we knew he was planning to apply to.  "Did you tell them you wanted more information?"  "Not exactly."  He opens the envelope, waves a folder that says "Congratulations," and says, "I guess I got in."  "Wait, wait, did you apply there?"  "Yes."  "When?"  "About two weeks ago."  "Um, you never mentioned it.  Well, congratulations!!!"

Sigh.  OK.  Not exactly how the first acceptance is supposed to go, but it's going to get better, right?  Wrong.

"I just got an email congratulating me on being accepted to X University."  

"Was it an acceptance email, or was it an email that assumed you'd already gotten a letter?"

"It assumed I'd gotten a letter."

"Well, congratulations, assuming you've been accepted!"

"Thanks.  I guess."

He looks almost as confused as I feel.


"Um, didn't you just apply there two days ago?"  I know, that's not  appropriate, but how can someone get accepted in two days? I mean, really!

Well, no, he says, it's been a bit longer than that.  Maybe a week.  

I realize I'm old, but a week?

He has a few more applications out.  I'm hoping that he gets some acceptances the old-fashioned way - the thick envelope in the mail, when we already know he applied.  

But of course, this is the good stuff, and I am totally not complaining!  Maybe he'll get the thick envelope in the mail today!

The Aftermath

"The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun," said Wayne LaPierre, NRA's executive vice president.

It's like having a really bad song stuck in your head.  

I'd ask what he could possibly be thinking, but I know, he isn't.  He's posturing.  

Armed guards in every school?  There were armed guards at Columbine.  There was a police force at Virginia Tech.  And Fort Hood.  Fort Hood?  Really?  What could he even be thinking about?

But those are "only" the big ones.  Those are the cases where everyone can be pretty comfortable saying who the "bad guy" is.  But so many times, it is not so clear who the "good" guy is, and who the "bad" guy is.  Life is messier than that.  In real life, it often comes down to after-the-fact determinations that are based on piecing together bits of information that police and DA's try to pull together.  It sometimes comes down to: the bloodier (or dead) guy is the "victim" (= good guy); the not-as-bloody/sometimes-still-alive guy is the "perp" (= bad guy).  Does this always work?  

We don't hear about most cases of shootings.  We don't hear about who the shooters are, and how they perceive themselves.  Many of the people who some of us might consider "bad guys," consider themselves to be "good guys."  They believe that "their" country is being "infiltrated" or taken over by foreigners or atheists, or other wrong-thinking people, and that they are "saving" the country from people who are ruining "their" country.  

Who gets to decide who is a "good guy" and who is a "bad guy?"  For that matter, who decides what constitutes a guy "with a gun?"  Does it have to be a gun that is currently being deployed, or is it just the fact that someone carries a gun?  Or owns a gun?  What does it mean?

I am, truly, haunted by this awful, awful refrain that won't leave my brain.

I truly hope that some lunatic, who believes himself to be a "good guy," and believes LaPierre to be a "bad guy with a gun," doesn't decide that he needs to stop LaPierre.   We need more sanity, and LaPierre certainly didn't help to provide any.