I scored a date to the prom for my son.  Really.  This is one of those mother-of-the-year stories.

With his new license, my son drives between his father’s house and mine at will.  At 16, he’s not my most open and communicative kid.  I was so bummed to find out the week before prom that he didn’t have a date.  He was playing it cool, like it didn’t matter.  So I asked him if he would go if I got him a hot date from another school.  He doubted I could do it, so of course I rose to the challenge.

As it’s done in the modern world, I introduced them on My Space, and my son invited her via text messaging.  I cannot convey the flurry of stress and activity that ensued in the following 72 hours.  You must know that I achieved the fine moment of getting the girl to say “yes” just as I was leaving town.  How am I going to do this?  I am headed to the airport on an out-of-town business trip.  (Lest you strip me of my mother-of-the-year award upon discovering that I am out of town on prom weekend, remember that my son does not communicate.  I had one week notice on prom.  OK, OK, I should have checked the calendar myself.  Deduct some points.)

Now I have some serious tasks to accomplish in the next 48 hours, and his dad wants no part of this stress.   I need a tux.  I need a safe ride from Escondido to Petco Park.  I need flowers.  I run the BBB.  I have contacts.  I call my limo contact.  They are all booked up for the weekend.  Crap, now what do I do.

Well, Sheryl, how about doing what you tell everyone else to do?  At the airport, I pulled out my phone.  I accessed the internet (thank you teenagers for forcing me to text and look up movie times on my phone.)  I went to bbb.org and found a report on an accredited tux shop two miles from my house.  I called them and told them my son was on the way.  I looked for an accredited limo driver.  The second report I pulled up was close to home and they had an available limo at a lower rate than my sold-out buddy.  Two more phone calls and I was set.

I know I run the place, but I’m a believer.  My son had a great prom experience, and I didn’t worry whether the companies I chose would take advantage of him.  We both have pretty great memories of that flurry of a weekend.  Make some of your own.  Try it for yourself at bbb.org.

I guess maybe I have a little “sexist” in me because I often call it “a woman’s intuition.”  You know, that feeling in my gut that seems to know right from wrong, even when my brain is trying to rationalize an injustice.  After all, the business signed a contract with us, we are completely within our rights to hold him to it, but does being within “rights” make it “right?”

I took my daughter to Egypt last month.  We witnessed the beauty and awe of ancient history, and we witnessed the struggle and poverty of a third-world country.  On one of our group excursions, our host explained the art school we were going to visit.  It was a creative school that taught kids the beautiful skill of hand-knotting carpets.  These children would otherwise be on the streets, but instead were clean, well-fed and making a little bit of money on their daily projects.  They were eager to show us this new “school” concept.

Besides the knots in the carpets, upon entering the “school,” I certainly had a knot in my stomach.  While they were all smiles and eager to show off the mastery of their skills, the scene could not have been more clear in my mind.  I was witnessing child labor disguised as education.  After watching the children “perform” their craft, we were shuttled upstairs where the men in suits worked hard to sell us the wares crafted by the kids downstairs.  I wandered away from the group and back downstairs where one of the children begged me for money, which we were strictly advised before entering NOT to give the children.  Of course we shouldn’t.  Then the children might beg instead of work.  The quickness of their minds and dexterities of their fingers were certainly a benefit to getting the job done quickly. 

The “teacher” explained how fortunate these children were to be learning this enterprise, and how so many children are living dirty on the streets of Egypt.  Capitalism and competition sometimes allows us to reason that something wrong could possibly be right.  I tried to reason it, but my gut was clear and unwavering.  Profiting at the hands of working children is wrong.