The Informant

I always look forward to parent observation day at the kids' school because it's my once yearly opportunity to glean the answer to the mystical question, "What did you do in school today?"

(The J-dog learned to discern half notes from whole notes on the hand bells, and I also happened to notice that he zipped and hung his own coat up with ease. This from a kid who at home will feign total paralysis in order to avoid sticking even one appendage through an armhole without my assistance. As for the V-meister, she donned a pair of goggles and did a bit of drilling at the workbench before settling into multiplication bead work. It's a Montessori school!)

After the observation session, another parent and I were invited back to the Director's office for a Q/A and discussion session. We were talking about how well the children got along in general when the other parent (to whose son my V-meister recently announced her betrothal) brought up a name calling incident we had both witnessed.

"I have to mention" V-meister's future father-in-law said, "That we did notice one student call Logan Scully 'evil' for no good reason."

This immediately piqued the Director's interest.

"Evil?"

"Yes! Isn't that horrible?" the FIL said. "And Logan Scully was just walking along, minding his own business when it happened!"

The Director asked V-meister's FIL if he happened to know the name of the boy who hurled the insult.

He didn't.

I, on the other hand, did, but was loathe to divulge his identity for fear of being branded a narc. I had already given one girl the stink-eye earlier that morning when I witnessed her trying to wrestle J-dog's musical mallet from his hands.

"If I tell you, will you promise not to expose me as your informant?" I asked the Director, who assured me that the information would remain just between her, me, and the V-meister's future father-in-law.

"Okay." I said. "It was Hank Turner, and he called Logan Scully an evil butt!"

"Actually," the FIL interjected, "I thought I heard, 'evil gut'."

"What?" I exclaimed, incredulous. "It was definitely 'butt.' He called him an 'evil butt'."

"No, I'm pretty sure it was, 'gut'."

"Dude, that doesn't make any sense." I said. "Why would you call someone an evil 'gut'? It was definitely 'butt'. Evil butt."

"Gut!"

"Butt!"

"Gut."

The principal redirected us before we came to blows and shortly thereafter, we were dismissed.

But I don't know. As much as I like the V-meister's fiancé, I'm not sure I can let her marry into a family who doesn't know butts from guts.