Amateur Dramatics
Please excuse me while I do a regulation “Thank f*ck it’s Friday” happy dance. Of course I’m not really doing a dance – I’m still sitting on my ever-so-slightly worn-out office chair at the ever-so-slightly broken desk in the office at work. It’s trying to rain outside, and a guy across the way is trying to drive us all insane – sanding a piece of wood with a screaming electric sander of some description.
The project I have been stressing over for the last few days has finally gone live. I promise not to pollute this out-pouring of my head too much more with vague posts about JavaScript for the foreseeable future.
What can I share from the recent past (read: since the last blog post) ? Perhaps the story of this morning might have the most entertainment value.
Miss 14 let slip on the way home from youth-club last night that she “probably wasn’t going to go to school tomorrow”. I warned my other half last night as much, so we woke this morning with confident expectations of a long and drawn out war to deliver her from her bed to the front door, and off to school.
While clearing the kitchen and getting my bag ready for work, I overheard raised voices upstairs, and a rather lengthy lecture going on. I wandered up to see if I could be of assistance – which resulted in me standing in her room, bringing her world crashing down around her. After a few moments of not really negotiating at all, she lost her phone, laptop, tablet, and bedclothes. I also opened her bedroom windows as wide as they would go, and told her if she didn’t appear downstairs in 5 minutes, I would call the rugby coach to pull her out of the cup match on Sunday.
The resulting wailing, screaming, shouting, and barrage of complaints were somewhat muffled by her bedroom door, that I closed behind me as I left. Apparently I am mean, nasty, and a terrible parent.
I looked in a few minutes later, and discovered her still lying on the bed. I raised the phone in my hand, and began looking for the rugby coach’s number. She lifted herself upright, wincing in theatrical pain at the very thought of moving, before half stumbling, half hopping across the room.
“Where are you going?”
“My school clothes are downstairs!”
I watched her make her way down the stairs, a step at a time, eyes screwed up in pretend pain. I made a coffee while she carried on her act.
Five minutes later she re-appeared downstairs.
“Can I use crutches?”
“If you use crutches, people will laugh at you. Oh look – here she comes – the girl that has every Monday and every Friday off school with a pretend injury – and now she’s on crutches for the day”
“FINE – I WON’T THEN!”
She stumbled, and half hopped her way to the front door, eyes screwed up in pain, leaning on things for support, and making a real song-and-dance about the whole thing.
And then it all went wrong.
You see, she didn’t think that I might watch her walk away from the house. As soon as the front door shut, she was miraculously cured, and confidently walked away from the house with no trace of the life threatening injuries that half an hour before had caused her to be bed-ridden.
I wonder if I should inquire how long it took her to walk to school when I get home later this evening ?