Hitting Rock Bottom
The title of this post is a little disingenuous reallybecause in this case “Rock Bottom” was the title ofa music festival happening in a neighbouring village. I was informed (I am never asked) that we were going a few days ago, so pretty much scratched doing anything this weekend to make way for it.
The day began with bacon sandwiches for everybody except myselfbecause I foolishly offered them to everybody without figuring out how much bacon we had. While everybody else tucked in, I washed the grill pan out, and made myself a bowl of muesli (which I don't mind, but it doesn't really compare to a bacon sandwich).
The next job was getting the kids ready to leave by lunchtime, which sounds eminently doable until you figure a 13 year old girl into the equation that doesn't sound enthusiastic about going anywhere, or doing anything. I walked a tight-rope with the language used around her throughout the morningnever hinting that she might have any option but to go with us. It kind of workedwe were only 20 minutes late leaving the house, and she only started complaining after walking the first mile towards the venue.
Rock Bottom itself was entirely predictable, sadly. Rather than being a real “music festival”, filled with people that cared about the music, it was kind of a gentrified church picnic, where the various well-to-do families of the local area had gathered together to mingle with each other, and sit across the field where the non-existent thousands should have been, in neatly organised collections of folding chairs, and blankets. Some of the bands were great, but I kind of felt sorry for them because hardly anybody seemed to be listening.
Maybe I'm the music snob. Maybe all smaller festivals take this form. Maybe most people really don't care about listening to the music, rather than drinking expensive beer and chatting about what school their kids have got intoAs it was, the last few hours were cut short by Miss 13 doing her “I've had enough” act, and making our life a misery with repeated bleats of “when can we go home?”, interspersed with the odd “this is BORING”. After half an hour of the continual barrage from her, my other half lost her rag entirely and threatened to pack everything awaydoing her usual thing of screaming “WE ARE NEVER GOING ANYWHERE OR DOING ANYTHING EVER AGAINTHAT'S ITNEVER AGAIN”.
She went stomping off to get the younger girls, and by the time she returned had cleared the red mist enough to just f*ck my evening up. “YOU TAKE HER HOMEWE'RE STAYING HERE!”. I shrugged in a manner Stan Laurel would have been proud, and carried on packing stuff away. I walked home 50 yards apart from MIss 13, who complained that we didn't treat her in a mature manner (she said, while refusing to walk any furtherthe irony was not lost on me).
So that's how Rock Bottom hit Rock Bottom. Trudging the couple of miles home with a moody teenager in tow, and missing out on seeing the one decent act of the evening. I could write a lot more about the uncanny way I end up picking up the pieces when everybody else rips lumps out of each other, but I'm not going to, because I imagine every family goes through these episodes from time to time. The last thing you want to read is some bitter father pissing into the wind about the status quo.