Thank You for Asking

Despair

Gloom.  Despair.  Agony.  These feelings threaten to overcome me.  I can barely make it out of bed and when I do I prostrate myself in anguish.  No, no the children are fine.  No, Beloved has not done a runner.  The situation is far more grave than any of that…Rowena has finally done it.  She has left me. 

One always hopes in time of catastrophe that one will react with dignity and decorum.  I did not, and I am not proud of that.  It will be a long time before I can forget the wailing, the begging, the bribery…and that was just my children’s reaction.  I was far worse.  Even Beloved looked a little pale and panicky at the thought of the household and children left in my slapdash hands.  I knew it was dire when he asked Rowena if it was a matter of money, “because,” he desperately offered, “we still have the children’s Trust Accounts.”  “Oh darling!”  I cry gratefully.  “The children’s Trust Accounts!  Yes!  You’re brilliant!”  I turn swiftly and scream maniacally at Rowena “We have more…we can get you more!”  Rowena pries herself out of my arms and says gently, kindly even, “It is done.  By the time the sun rises in the morning…I will be gone” or something along those lines.  I cannot believe this is happening!  She is our Sensai!  We are her little grasshoppers, and she has let us loose into a world for which we are NOT YET READY!

I find I am going through the various stages of grief.  I initially act as if it isn’t happening (Denial).  When Rowena attempts to leave after her earth-shattering announcement I trill merrily, “Okay, RoRo (the children’s pet name for her) see you tomorrow!”  She just shakes her head sadly and moves me bodily from my spread eagle position in front of the door.

I then decide I never liked her that much in the first place (Anger), and throw all the food from the freezer, that she kindly pre-prepared for us, into the compost bin.  I stand looking at the atrocity I have committed and discover I cannot move.   Beloved and the boys find me hours later in the garbage room lovingly stroking a frozen Coq   au Vin.  

By morning I decide we just didn’t try to get her to stay hard enough (Bargaining).  I have all the boys call and plead with her one by one.  I pinch Youngest so he cries a little bit.

 With none of this working I finally take to my bed (Depression).  What does any of it matter?  Why should I bother to grocery shop?  There is no one to do anything with the food I buy!  I lie in bed thinking of all the good times Rowena and I had, her working, me napping.  I can’t understand how it all went so wrong!  At one point I think I’m getting better… until, one day, while gazing nostalgically into the refrigerator, I find Rowena’s sweet and sour sauce we used to dip her Lumpia in.  That, I can tell you, was a hard day.

The final stage (Acceptance) has not yet graced me with her fickle presence.  Every morning I still wait to hear Rowena’s key turn in the lock, but the sound does not come.  Every night I sit, waiting, at the dinner table, but no food arrives.  Maybe I’ll just give Rowena a quick call…one more time…           

Play Date

Sabrina calls to ask if I would like to bring the children over for a play date.  We are all going out of our minds being cooped up inside because of the rain, so I grab Middle and Youngest and rush right over.   When we arrive, I am happy to find Sabrina has assembled a little party of mothers with their children.  I pour myself a cup of tea, grab two handfuls of the children's goldfish and settle in for a nice cozy chat. 

The subject turns to our kids and the difficulty some of them are having in their very challenging schools.  Seeing as how most of my extended family is riddled with ADHD, and my children seem to be proudly carrying on the family tradition I feel this is a subject I can, with confidence, say I am a bit of an expert in.

Jillian tells us she has been notified by the school that, though her first grader has a 7^th grade vocabulary and can do a word problem in nothing flat, he still confuses his b’s and d’s and is not 100% confident in Sequencing Events.   Apparently this is very difficult for Jillian to understand as she effortlessly excelled in school.  She’s pretty sure these problems come from her husband’s side of the family.  “Ha!” I cry, happy to join in.  “I tried that one on Beloved and suggested that the boys got their ADHD from him.”  I elbow her chummily as I laugh helplessly at the memory.  Jillian looks at me with disdain and continues as if I’d not spoken.  Of course she understands that everyone is different, and believe you me, she has plenty of issues she struggles with such as…ooh, let’s see, wellllll…she is really messy!  Just can’t seem to clean up after herself!  Apparently it has always been thus!  She gets a far away look in her eye and remembers her teachers laughingly sympathizing with her parents over a cup of tea during parent/teacher conferences; how difficult it must be to deal with such a bright young thing unable to cope with day to day mundane tasks…bit of an absent-minded professor really.  I sit munching goldfish and think about the dread-filled hours waiting for my parents to come home from my parent/teacher conferences.  I’m sure no one in the conference was laughing least of all my extremely irritated and fed up teacher.

The conversation is not going exactly as I expected.  Everyone else’s problems seem almost …desirable.  My children’s issues are not as cute.  During one of our boy’s conference a teacher blithely told us our son was the “Most Requested by Other Parents Not to be Seated Next to Their Son.”  After a few awkward moments of the teacher looking at us, eyebrows raised, expecting a response, Beloved mumbled weakly, “is there an award category for that?”  No one laughed.  Felicity breaks into my reverie as I hear her say she has exactly the opposite problem.  “Me too!” I exclaim, thinking I’ll confide in her the, “Most Requested” story, but Felicity carries on to inform us that in actual fact her son is horribly bored in school.  Aaah.   The teachers apparently find it terribly difficult to challenge him.  Now, she’s not saying he’s brighter than the other children, at this she lowers her eyes in a modest “I’m not the sort to point that out” kind of way, but sometimes it is almost more difficult for the extremely intelligent to cope in school as it is, well, the slower children (at this she smiles sympathetically at Jillian).

Jillian frantically tries to figure out a way to retract her statement regarding her son’s Sequencing Events problem.  “Yes, well, new studies have found that to compete in our rapidly changing society the old-fashioned children who learn by rote will no longer be relevant.  They will become the middle-managers of the world, whilst the creative children that think outside the box will be the innovators, the scholars, the doers, so to speak.”  Jillian breathes a big sigh of relief and seems quite pleased with this up-dated world view.  I am getting more and more concerned, as I realize the only box that holds interest for my children, in or out of, is their X-box.  I would be thrilled for them to be “by-rote learners”, boringly making A’s, whilst drearily snatching up school awards.  

At that moment, Sabrina comes upstairs having settled AnaLeticia and the children.  She’s a little put out, as it seems Youngest would not go along with the others in building a Lego Airplane, because he thought it should be a Space Ship.  “How interesting!” I exclaim.  “So, even though the instructions said it was an Airplane…he saw a Space Ship.”  I look around to see who else is seeing what I’m seeing.  Apparently no one.  I try again, “so even though the box (I pause meaningfully) said it was an Airplane…Youngest, thinking in a different and original way, thinks it should be a Space Ship.”  Yes, yes, highly original” Sabrina says briskly, “I think the problem is it is made for ages 7-14.  Clara and Minnie always work above their ages…but that’s girls (she smiles at me generously).  I’m sure we can find some blocks for Youngest, so he can build whatever his creative little mind can come up with.” 

Car Accident

Weary with the paralyzing pressure of being a stay-at-home mom and being pulled this way and that, I make things worse by getting in a car accident.  I am pretty sure it’s not my fault because the car in front of me…that I rear-ended… appeared straight out of thin air.  The very angry Russian fellow that leaps with agile grace out of his car screaming and gesticulating wildly appears to think it was my fault.  I look frantically around and spot a group of construction workers across the street.  Luckily, there are some things in life one can always depend upon and one of them is the construction worker code of conduct.  Therefore, in a stand-off between a very angry Russian fellow and a girl…the girl wins, regardless of age, clothing or whether or not she brushed her hair that day.

Not familiar with being in the right in car-related situations, I ask the construction workers if they are sure it was the Russian fellow’s fault…that I rear-ended him.  “”Yup…saw the whole thing.  Dude’s fault.”  I ask them to please stay close as the Russian fellow seems to be totally losing control, and I’m not sure what he’s capable of.  I’m surprised to find I have developed a Southern accent as I say this and am starting to enjoy the attention.  They all watch (my ass) as I walk away, and I think how sad it is that construction workers aren’t always treated with the respect they deserve.  I approach the angry Russian having acquired a sexy little stroll and a bit of an attitude after my encounter with the construction workers.  I lose this attitude f-a-a-a-irly quickly as the Russian’s anger confronts me.  I guess generations of having to deal with Cossacks, Stalin and government-sanctioned art have really honed their ability to get mad.  I put my hand up to stop the tirade and say indignantly, “I am sorry suh, but stoppin’ dead in thu middle of thu road with no warnin’ is just plain dangerhus!”  Damn, I forgot to lose the Southern accent and it doesn’t appear to be going down well with the Russian.  He responds with something along the lines of, “You stupid hick! I was trying to park and you careened right into the back of my car!” except in a scary Russian accent.  I look back at my construction worker friends, but they seem very busy with their bacon and egg sandwiches.  I have to calm the Russian down and exchange “information” all in a Southern accent which I now feel obliged to stick with or risk looking flaky.

Finally a police officer arrives but says she has no jurisdiction and is there to help only if someone is injured…are either of us injured?  I promptly say, “No ma’am, ahm jes fine.”  The lesbian police officer looks like she could happily slap me silly, as the suddenly very fragile sounding Russian says, while rubbing his neck, that he’s just not sure.  He looks around in a dazed manner.  Do we mind if he just sits down on the sidewalk for a minute?  “What?!  You were totally fine not two minutes ago!” I scream, losing my Southern charm.  “Ma’am, please calm down and stop harassing this man, or I’ll have to issue you a citation” the lesbian says self-righteously.  “But he’s lying!”  I scream.  My inner racist comes storming out as I scream to the Russian, “This is what’s wrong with your country in the first place!!”  That stops all of us in our tracks as none of us are quite sure what I mean.  The lesbian is the first to recover, “at any rate ma’am, this will be looked into by your respective insurance companies and I’m sure once the facts are in” she says, whilst beadily eyeing the front seat of my car where my recently discarded coffee cup, mascara wand and cell phone sit in full indicting view, “I’m sure a settlement can be agreed upon.” 

The Russian is now prone on the sidewalk, gently moaning and mumbling something about soft tissue damage.  I am outraged by the injustice and look back at my fair-weather construction worker friends who have had a burst of initiative and are jack-hammering, painting and drilling to beat the band.  The lesbian officer has her citation book and pen at the ready and is looking at me hopefully.  I give her a withering look and march haughtily back to my car.  After struggling a few minutes to get my car door to shut I drive the clattering Volvo away in what I hope is a dignified yet ominous you-haven’t-heard-the-last-of-me manner.  I look in my rear view mirror to see their reaction.  The police officer is very gently helping the now extremely fragile and aged Russian to his feet.  “The gall…WHA..!!!!”  I screech to a stop after missing by inches a car stopped at the Stop sign in front of us.  The very angry Nicaraguan woman jumps from her car, screaming at me in Spanish whilst pointing to the “Baby on Board” sign on her window.  I take a tentative look back and see the police officer striding…jogging really…toward me flipping through her citation book like mad with a look of pure joy on her face.  

All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental...really.