At our school, 9th graders take Health class and learn about all sorts of things, including male and female bodies and birth control. It’s not JT’s first go-round with health class but this time around things have gone to another level. Students in the class are required to go to a drugstore, buy a condom, and bring it to school to prove that they’ve mastered that task.
To my surprise, JT was largely unembarrassed by the assignment. We went to Target and I directed him to the birth control section and then T and I left him to complete his homework while we did our shopping.
When we were done, he met us at the door with his shopping bag. He was glad to see us because he’d been patiently waiting to get inside that shopping bag. It seems he’d budgeted his $10 and the bag contained both a box of condoms and a pack of 2015 Fleer baseball cards. With the season opener for baseball just around the corner, he wanted to be ready.
The condoms met the requirements of a school assignment but the baseball cards, well, they were an item on a whole other order of importance. Baseball; the season opener; joy in the game of his past, his now, and his future. Something tells me that those condoms won’t be used any time soon. With a batting average on the upswing, he’s got more important concerns.
I’ll take it.
No comments:
Post a Comment