Out of bed. Get dressed, go quickly, scream while I head downstairs. Where are the kids? Why aren't they answering me? The dog decides that this is a perfect time to stick his nose in my butt. I'm wearing yesterdays shorts, he appears to like my musk.
At the bottom of the stairs, I see the children. Two of them are on the couch. Neither one is dressed. The toddler plays with a Barbie at the breakfast table, dipping her hair into a bowl of cereal milk. Cartoons are on, loud and obnoxious, an ear-splitting car wreck that has their undivided attention.
"What the hell!" I say. "We are going to be late for school!"
"What school?" Wyatt says, my 10-year-old boy. "We don't have school today."
The kid is bright but clueless at the same time. Last week we had to discuss what the term "Kafkaesque" meant. He came across it while watching one of his science videos. However, he doesn't seem to know his days of the week. I'm hoping that he is a forgetful genius, a nutty professor that will one day invent flubber.
"It's Tuesday! Saturday? We just had the weekend. It's Tuesday!"
The kids don't move. Ollie, the four-year-old at the table, has moved on from Barbie and is now just sticking his whole face into the cereal bowl. He's trying to drink the milk like our cat.
"Move!" I give the command like a general, one that has slept late and is going to miss the offensive that starts in five minutes.
The kids don't move.
"Move!" I say again. We need to have some time this evening so that I can fully discuss listening. The cartoons on the TV switch to a commercial.
Now the kids jump up. They run upstairs, taking the time to push each other over by the third stair. Someone crashes into a wall, a picture frame tumbles from it and the woman on the TV is telling me about ABC Mouse.
In the kitchen, I grab the lunch boxes. I start throwing pre-made snacks and chips in. Two bologna sandwiches. For some reason, I place the bread in a sandwich bag, zip it up and throw it in next to the juice boxes. Then I take the bologna and put it in its own sandwich bag. It is lost on me why I did this instead of just making the sandwich. No time to think, we must react. The clock says 9:05. Shit. We're already late. The bus has come and gone.
"Ollie! Get down and get your shoes on," I tell my toddler. He doesn't have to get dressed. He can roll the whole day in pajamas. He stays home with me, we can look like crap when we need to. Today, apparently, we need to. The older kids come down the stairs.
"Why did you let me sleep in?" I ask them. It's a fools question that is asked only to make myself feel better. They aren't responsible for me getting up. I'm responsible for them. But this way I get to deflect my blame. Let's call it payback for a 1000 nutshots over the years. They can take a little bit of this blame for me.
"We didn't know," Vivi says. 11 and she pleads ignorance of the law as an excuse, puts the blame back on me. "Why didn't you get up?"
"Had a late night, had to work," I tell them.
"Dad, you don't work. You stay home with us."
"I binge watched a show on Netflix," I say, giving the truthful answer.
We hammer the kids on honesty, lecture about it often, rarely practice it ourselves. Little white lies get called out constantly. How come you and mommy sent us to bed early? To have alone time (sex). Where is the dog? He went to the farm (he's dead). Where do babies come from? From alone time (unprotected sex).
They are right, I am wrong and we are also late.
Lunches packed, I throw them at the children's heads. Backpacks get things stuffed in, jackets get put on, I grab the toddler. Ollie screams as I yank him from his chair. He was dipping his fingers into his milk and using that to paint some sort of picture on the table. His masterpiece wasn't finished. Don't care, got to get to school.
In the car, everyone gets buckled up. Hurry. Stop fighting Stop pushing. Stop screaming. One of the children throws something at one of the other children. One of the boys fart. They all laugh. I pull out of the driveway like I'm the coach master of the insane wagon. The laughter sounds maniacal, sharp and unhinged.
School is less than three minutes away. The morning radio lets me know about politics--someone said something stupid. My toddler says that later today he is going to fart on his brother's pillow while they are at school. The next election I decide that I'm going to vote for him rather than any candidate.
9:20 and we pull up to school. Vivi and Wyatt jump out, I unbuckle the toddler from the car seat and put him on the ground. He's not wearing any shoes. We run up to the front door and ring the bell. The school stays locked during the day now, a defense against possible crazy people. I look up to the security camera above the door and realize what I look like now. My shirt's on backward. I am a forgetful genius like my son.
The school lets us in, double doors lead to the office.
"Hi!" Donna says from behind her desk. I refuse to look at my reflection in her glasses. She is the friendly gatekeeper and I know what she is going to ask next. She hands me a pen and a clipboard so that I can sign the children in.
"And why are we late this morning?" Donna asks.
"Doctors appointment," I say hoping that she doesn't notice the no shoe wearing toddler and my backward shirt. I also notice that it's inside out.
"Dad..." Wyatt says.
Shit. He's calling me out. Right here in front of Donna. Donna used to like me. I hate that my son is right. Make a mistake, own up to it.
"Dad. Dad is the reason we are late," I tell the gatekeeper.
Donna makes a clucking noise behind her smile. I hate that I'm being seen as a bumbling father. I'm not. Usually, I have my shit together. Stupid Netflix.
"Oh, we all have bad days sometimes," Donna says, letting me off the hook. I kiss the kids, tell them to have a great day, give them hugs.
And notice that neither one of them has their backpacks.
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