Anyone able to take the stress away?

I hate days like this. I had to call two sets of parents under the pretext that I wanted to verify whether an absence was excused or not. I say pretext because it was a test day, and there is no way on earth those boys didn't know it was a test day, and mysteriously, they were only absent for my class. Plus, they are friends. And both absent together. I'm not always too bright but I'm pretty sure I know why they were absent.

But that means they get a zero for that test. The crap of it is, I really like both of them. If just by psychic force of will I could get them to work and to think, I would, in a New York minute. As it is, they are probably going to fail the class. And that sucks. They brought it on themselves, but it really sucks. Plus, I think I got them in a LOT OF TROUBLE at home.

I tried to play it as fair as possible. I warned both of the boys, told them what the penalty was, and gave them the opportunity to talk to their parents first. I had spoken with both parents on other occasions, and knew they were straight shooters and wouldn't excuse the kids to get them out of a punishment they'd created. One of the boys took me up on it and fessed up to his mom before I talked to her, which was good. The other? Whooooo boy, I think he's in a heap of trouble.

My inner dialogue: I didn't make him skip class. I didn't make him skip class on a test day. I didn't make him lie about it.

But still, I hate being a grown up sometimes.