There are times when I actually believe that I am a decent person. For some reason this always occurs to me when I'm walking into the male staff toilet at school. It's kind of like a confessional sans the priest. A priest in there would make it awkward. A priest in there isn't likely to be a priest, rather a man dressed as a priest in which case he is there because he is taking a break from his nefarious plans. Alternatively, he is in the middle of one of said nefarious plans.
Anyway.
I walk into the alcove and through the orange toilet door and that's when the thought hits me. I'm doing okay... people like me... my life matters... blah blah blah.... blah. Unless of course someone is in there and the door is (hopefully) locked. Then I just slam into it, hurt my wrist, hope that I wasn't talking to myself too loudly so that whoever I scared the proverbial out of doesn't work out it was me and make like a bat out of hell out of there.
There are times when I think that I am a decent person.
Today wasn't one of them.
Tan was working today and that meant I had to get off my arse and provide some sort of assistance. On Thursdays that means dropping her off at work, and taking Zed and his friend to school. My oldest is already at school and the plan is to meet her and then take her to the uniform shop.
I drop Tan off. Me and the boys find ourselves a little early so I park the car out the front of school and crank up The Shins. The boys kick around in the back seat. So I read a magazine and let the clock tick round until class is only 5 minutes away.
I jump out the car and tell the boys to do the same.
They do this. His mate grabs his own bag and hops out. Zed jumps out and starts to strut off like, I don't know, Huckleberry Finn. I notice that his sandals are on the wrong feet.
"Hang on, where's your school bag?"
He heads back to the car.
Nothing.
I open the boot. The boot looks alarmingly empty. I'm actually alarmed before I realize why exactly I'm alarmed. Then it hits me. This means there's no bag in the car at all. Spiders begin to skitter across my heart.
"Oi... where's your bag?"
"At home."
At HOME?!"
Silence.
Parents. Glances. I forget he's five. I talk to him like he's my idiot henchmen in one of those gangster films.
"Right, boys, back in the car."
The spiders in my heart produce knives and start stabbing my heart as I begin to do the math.
I'm supposed to meet my daughter in 2 minutes.
The round trip will take 10 minutes.
Failure to meet daughter will mean no uniform.
Last chance for uniform.
No uniform means an unhappy wife.
I picture the scene for a moment.
It unsettles me
It's ok, I'll drop the boys and then meet daughter then I'll go home and....
No.
I've got to be in class to teach in fifteen minutes.
Uniform = at least ten minutes... at least.
Round trip back = ten minutes... at least.
Zed needs his bag. He can't go all day without food.
There is no way I'm going to get that bag in time.
There is no chance of pulling all of this off.
I start to yell.
I'm actually yelling the sums in my head out loud. And as I start I'm angry. But halfway through the list my eyes point in different directions and my mouth moves like it belongs to a marionette. I've shot straight through to bastard maniac at the children in the back seat. I glance in the rear vision mirror. My son's eyes are perfect circles. The other child's explaining something about not forgetting HIS bag but I can't hear him over my noise.
I finally work out that I have to turn the car around.
I swing it and suddenly it's like we've just got the call for back-up. Cept I'm not a cop, I'm a loser Dad having a tantrum.
On and on I go like Tony Soprano. There is no object lesson for my son in this. The lesson, if there was ever one in the first instance is blown away by the hurricane of me and my dancing, angry, stabbing spiders who wear tiny T-shirts with a picture of me with the title "DICKHEAD".
I ring my wife. I yell down the phone at her. I think I'm actually explaining something to her, like that's the intention but it must just sound like she's got a call from a war zone evac gone wrong.
I get the guys to class. Miss my daughter. Fish her out of class. Sort out uniforms. Talk to a friend who had wound up behind me when I chewed up the asphalt (she's actually a cop... I play back the tape in my head... the spider's T-Shirt now say something I've made the decision not to publish). I work out how I can fix everything - I'll be late to my appointment with the University in Fremantle... but for the most part I can work things out.
I get back in the car to get to class.
I think how little my son is and a part of me dies inside.
There are times when I think that I am a decent person.
Today wasn't one of them.
