Why I always start the day with a bang: notes from a dad’s diary
ARRIVING AT MY DESK, I collapse into my chair with a bucket of coffee so tall that it shouldn't be called "large" or "grande," but "Eiffel".
A new colleague comments: "I'm surprised you need coffee. You always seem so unruffled. Had a rough morning?"
I decide to tell him about it.
7.25 am: I run around the apartment screaming at the children to get dressed. I dash into the kitchen and discover to my horror that we have not washed up the night before, so every surface is piled high with dirty plates.
7.35: I open the fridge and a jar of mango chutney leaps off the edge of a shelf. These days, 99.99 percent of foodstuffs are packaged in plastic, but this is the last thing on Earth still sold in a glass jar. SMASH! Floor tiles glitter with razor-sharp shards. The dog finds itself wearing a light coating of mango chutney. She gives herself a lick and decides she likes it.
7.41: Using brute force, I clear some countertop space (more glass breaks) and speed-assemble a packed lunch. A panicked female voice says: "Dad. My friends are waiting. Where's my lunch?" I march through the broken glass in my bare feet to hurl a pack of sandwiches to a girl racing out the door.
7.49: I scrunch back to my tiny bit of counter space. I hear a male voice: "Dad! I have to go. My school bus is here." Once more I trudge, guru-like, through broken glass, and throw a lunch pack to another child.
8.01: Twelve minutes later, lunch three is ready, glass has been picked out of my feet, the blood has been mopped up, and the chutneyed dog wiped (much to her annoyance). I race to the bedroom to get dressed.
8.09: The youngest child and I descend to ground level to get the primary school bus. Huh? The road is empty! No bus, no kids, no parents. I reassure her: "We missed it. Don't worry. Daddy will take you to school in a taxi."
8.16: I check my pockets. Oops. The sum contents are a single small brown coin. "Don't worry," I tell the child. "We'll go to the money machine in the mall and get some cash, THEN we'll get a taxi."
8.25: We sprint to the nearest mall and rise to the second floor where there is an ATM. I punch in the instructions. "REQUEST REJECTED," the screen says. "INSUFFICIENT FUNDS."
At this point in my story, my listener in the office, who is unmarried and childless, shakes his head in horror.
"What a nightmare start to the day," he remarks.
I shrug my shoulders and reply: "I wouldn't use the word `nightmare.' I'd use the word `average.' In fact, I got the kid to school before the bell, and myself to work slightly earlier than usual."
Now he knows why nothing can ruffle me. I'm invincible. I'm imperturbable. I'm a parent.
Later, the phone rings. It's my wife.
"You're not going to believe this," she says. "But someone has seasoned our dog with mango chutney."
