Monday 7 June 2010

First Day!

I was tossing and turning all night. Would I miss it? Is it morning yet? Is that rumble thunder or my hungry stomach (Maggi for dinner, Of all the people in the world, Amma is the best, though she is not sparky, though she is not fun, who else would let me eat chocolate pudding for dinner? .. already a bundle of contradictions, thats my girl, yes)? New phone! What if it forgets to ring? Why is it so cold to touch? Where is my pillow? Who is my bedsheet? When is my hair clasp? Whither...

Hark! Theres the door bell.

Apparently, my friend Veej, my cook and comrade-in-arms, also spent a restless night worrying about first day of school. What if I get late? What if akka (that's me, though we are the same age, if you split hairs) has to leave?

In my defense:
(1) We changed schools. Its a new school. But since we are in II std. I feel like we have been given insufficient information. Where is the web-site? Why are there no first day updates in my mail-box? Is there a snack break? There are unanswered questions. And not enough material to read up. The school diary talks about man and god and war and how teenagers should respect elders.
(2) The tailor refused to stitch the white uniform. So she has to wear the old pair. I Ranipal-ed it and ironed it (meaning, I had my posse approach the offending piece of cloth with determination), but what if it does not fit properly? How about the missing belt? Oh fuck. I just remembered that it has the old school's monogram on it.
(3) The husband, who is my go-to guy in this situation especially as its his old school (no, really), has gallivanted off to Dilli. Amidst much cribbing about Dilli, Flights, Missing keys, and sundry other things.
(4) The monster is remarkably unconcerned. She has refused to try out her skirt. Avoided lifting her bag to see if she can. Not engaged with me on the issue of the snack. Turned a deaf ear to my wailing about lunch. At 3:10 am, my hands, blindly groping for the phone (or bedsheet) found her, descending from her bed to burrow into my back and on to my plastic encased bed, where she is still sleeping.
Three hours. At 12:30 we will emerge victorious. Its silly to be worried about the II std. teacher (she looks tough! Hope she is not like Trunchbull :-(). I mean, really. Is this the reason why csm recommends this? Oh! maybe she will be like the whomping willow. Or this tree I read about in a book called The Beast With Nine Billion Feet which eats people during snack break. Its just school. Should I just wait there the whole three hours? Wait, thats so kindergarten, can't do that anymore. Not the year you learn that multiplication is, after all, repeated addition. Should I reach half an hour early? The actual school start time is 8:30 but it says 9:30 on the admit card, for the first day. Bollocks, its their stupidity if they wrote the time wrong. Should we ? Shouldn't we? Ugh. Glug. Oh well. Peace out y'all, see you on the other side.

3 comments:

Sue said...

Breathe.

And mind you return this piece of advice when my time comes.

dipali said...

How was the dreaded day, Kenny?

Preeti Aghalayam aka kbpm said...

suester, i know! will do!

dipali, just fine just fine. it managed it all quite coolly.