Art Appreciation

The phone rings early in the A.M. My caller i.d. tells me it’s the college boy. I assume something is wrong. This is how my sick mind works. Why else would he be calling me at 8:15? I brace myself. “Hello?”  “Hi, Mom, I wanted to tell you what just happened.”  I’m thinking, oh, no, uh-oh, here it comes. I take deep breaths, and recite from a script I keep by the phone for such parental moments. I clear my throat and try to sound as natural as possible.  “You can tell me anything, honey. Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out together.”
He forges ahead. “So, you know I’m in that art class, right?”

“Uh huh,” I say, supportively, although for the life of me, I remember zip about an art class. His major is environmental studies. What’s he doing in an art class? Does he have to do a diorama of the rain forest or melting ice caps? No wonder he’s calling me. I did all his dioramas for him back in the day. Maybe he needs me to fly up and do it for him. I run upstairs and grab my suitcase.  “You don’t remember I’m in art class?” he says. I detect a trace of hurt in his voice. “I didn’t say that.”

I shove the suitcase in the closet and start to relax. Whatever happened can’t be that bad. “Can you bail me out of jail?” That’s bad. Art class, I can handle. I mean, come on. What can go wrong in art class? It’s an elective.  However, I’m sure I can come up with something. It takes half a second for me to ponder a few possibilities: Has he gone and splattered paint on the walls, thereby destroying university property and landing in the dean’s office? Sounds expensive. I hope that’s not it. Has he gone all pre-school… thrown scissors at a classmate… stabbed out an eye? Sounds really expensive. I hope that’s not it, either. I start to get nervous again. He hasn’t committed any crimes against art since that ill-fated pottery class freshman year in high school. I refer to the unfortunate “kiln incident.” The rest is between our family, the school, and of course, the Reseda fire department. I sit down on the bed.

“Remind me again, what sort of art is it?” “It’s a drawing class. We draw stuff.”  Drawing. Paper and pencils. Nothing flammable. Good. I feel better already. I sit down on the bed and kick off my fuzzy slippers. “So, what happened, my darling?” “I just walked out of class.” I get nervous again. “You did? That’s not like you.”  “I know, but when I saw the old naked guy, I had to get out of there.” "Hang on. Why was there an old naked guy in class?” “We’re drawing nudes. Last week, we had a naked woman in there.” "How’d that go?” “Not too bad.”

“But you drew the line at the old naked guy?” “I’m not drawing the butt of an old naked guy.” “Well, it’s good you took a position on something.” “I felt pretty strongly about it.” “You should have stood in the middle of the room and shouted, ‘Hey! This wasn’t in the syllabus!” “So much for my career as an artist.”
“We’ll still love you, no matter how many old naked guys you refuse to draw.” “That makes me feel better.”
“That’s why I’m here.”