"She's on the line again Principal Bradley," came the anxious voice from Sheila Bradley's intercom, "what do you want me to tell her
this
time?"
She's never going to stop calling, the newly appointed principal of Davidsonville Central High School thought to herself as she prepared to respond to her new secretary, Ms. Linda Bertrand. Lori Whiting - Sheila's predecessor as the school's top administrator -- had warned her about this woman but Sheila Rudolph Bradley had never imagined it would be this bad.
"She sounds more upset than usual," Ms. Bertrand's voice continued, this time with more than a hint of trepidation in it, "and I should know."
Before joining the staff of Central's "Office of the Principal," Linda Bertrand had been the executive assistant to the now agitated caller - a woman who she feared even more than she despised. It was Ms. Bertrand's unceremonious firing by the woman now on hold -- for "not presenting herself in a professional manner" -- that had resulted in her having to take the much lower paying but mercifully more humane position in the public school system.
"Put her through," answered a resigned Principal Bradley, "I can only imagine what she's on the warpath about now."
The "she" is question was Danielle Marie Parnell, the soon-to-be 46 year-old mother of two students presently at the school, Anna and Maria. Eighteen-year-old Anna was nearing the end of her tenure at Central and about to head off to a college. Sixteen-year-old Maria was just about to finish her sophomore year at the affluent suburb's high school but, sadly for Sheila Bradley, she and her mother would be around for at least two more years.
Rumor had it that Lori Whiting had taken early retirement in no small part to avoid the officious Mrs. Parnell who, like many an early 21
st
century Tiger Mother, was the first to call the school with a complaint, loudest to criticize any teacher or administrator who challenged the imperious diva's assessment of her perfect children and least hesitant to take any perceived affront to those children "to the highest level."
* * *
"What is this
cow
waiting for," Danielle Parnell stewed to herself as she waited to be put through to Central High School's new principal, "does this woman have no idea who I am."
The gorgeous mother of three - whose oldest child Will was soon to be a sophomore at Harvard -- was making the call form the opulent bathroom of her South River facing manse while preparing for another day as the managing partner of SmythKnight, one of the world's largest and most influential law firms that was based squarely at the foot of Capitol Hill.
As she waited impatiently, the imperious uber-MILF looked almost lustfully at the vision she loved the most - her own reflection in the mirror staring back at her. With a body better than most women half her age -- kept perfectly toned by her ruthless dedication to fitness - and a face that she often described (accurately but without a hint of modesty) as the perfect combination of Miranda Kerr and Kerri Russel, Danielle Marie Parnell was truly a vision.
At the office she wore only the finest of fashions be they body hugging power suits or the snuggest of suede slacks. Her outfits were always "appropriate" - one of her favorite words - but never failed to accentuate her magnificently aerobicized ass or her pert, ample bosom. There was no room into which she'd walk where every male head would not turn. She was, in her view, and that of most any man, physical perfection personified.
The problem was she knew it and, more troubling to those around her, she loved to lord it over the likes of the
pathetic
Linda Bertrand and that newly installed
puppet
Sheila Bradley. It was bad enough that Danielle had to tolerate Sheila's portly daughter Jessica as a "partner" in her law firm. That she was now on hold awaiting that stuffed sausage's mother was infuriating her. She laughed inwardly as she thought of all the times she left Jessica Bradley and the other useless women at her firm and elsewhere humiliated as their husbands, sons and boyfriends abandoned any thought of them in Mrs. Parnell's splendiferous presence. She couldn't figure out in her brilliant mind which of them was more pathetic, the unworthy men who wanted to see her or their pedestrian mates who all wanted to be her - and she couldn't care less - they're all such peasants.
* * *
At last the voice of Principal Bradley came on the line snapping Danielle from her reverie and instantly releasing upon the unsuspecting administrator Mrs. Parnell's latest tirade.
"How I can I help you today Mrs. Parnell," Mrs. Bradley asked with the patience she had learned over thirty plus years dealing with parents.
"Well you could start by not keeping me waiting for ten minutes," Danielle snipped, "but seeing as how that ship has sailed perhaps you can explain to me why my daughter Anna was texted a
most
inappropriate image by - and
of
- one of the horny little perverts of whom you're in charge. I thought you had this disgusting behavior under control."
"Now Mrs. Parnell...," Sheila Bradley interjected.
"Don't you 'now Mrs. Parnell' me you weak-willed excuse for a gate keeper. If I didn't need to keep Maria at this school for another two years I would wash my hands of this nonsense but seeing as how she seems to insist on being with her
friends
until college I guess I have no choice."
"Danielle, please," the pained principal tried again.
"It's
Mrs. Parnell
to you Bradley," Danielle interrupted, "and because you're clearly doing nothing on your own to stop this nonsense you're at the very least going to arrange a parents' meeting so those of us who want to protect our children from these adolescent exhibitionists and voyeurs can discuss how to address the problem."
"Mrs. Parnell," Sheila Bradley calmly continued, "I realize that you're upset but as you just suggested problems like this really begin with parents and are not all that easy for the school to control."
It was the break that Danielle had been waiting for and for which she had all along been planning to close the trap on the elder Mrs. Bradley.
"How right you are,
Sheila
," Danielle practically purred into the phone, "this problem does begin with parents and their general lack of discipline in respect of their entitled little children. Why am I not surprised then that the first instance of these - nary I mention them -
dick pics
-- involved your grandson sending them to some poor unsuspecting girl less than five years ago. Perhaps if your overstuffed daughter had put him over her knee, or you her, this all could have been avoided."
Embarrassed by her grandson's horrible judgement along with that of his mother, Sheila Bradley blanched.
"I don't think corporal punishment is the answer Mrs. Parnell," Sheila weekly defended herself.
"Of course you don't, Sheila," Danielle mocked, "what kind of card carrying union member liberal would ever support such a thing. Well from where I sit there is nothing that the little pig deserves more than a good spanking - other than perhaps a night in jail."
Knowing there was naught left to say in her defense, and wanting this call desperately to be over, Sheila Harris willingly gave Mrs. Parnell the benefit of the bargain the alpha-lawyer was seeking.
"I'll arrange a meeting for parents and senior class students alike later this week Mrs. Parnell where, as you say, you'll have a chance to take things into your own hands. Is there anything specific I should say you'll be addressing."
"Phone etiquette is what I'll be discussing, Sheila," Danielle arrogantly proclaimed, "the appropriate use of photos on social media to be exact. I'll bring my daughter's phone as an example. I assure you it contains none of the prepubescent nonsense that most of these little beasts are carrying around. All I need from you is a wireless projector so that I can share with these little miscreants and their hillbilly parents an example of the propriety that has clearly gone missing in today's society."
* * *
"Why are doing this to me mother... why," Anna Parnell asked in vain, "you're going to humiliate me in front of all my friends."