May Be Poison

So, I don’t usually write this kind of commentary on my blog, but I am feeling tightly wound tonight after attending my son’s unexpected (well, to me anyway) orchestra recital. Really, it was a lovely concert, and I only have good things to say about how the kids are progressing, but some evenings just need further reflection. Let’s start back at 3:30 this afternoon, when X walks up to me with a permission slip in his hand and says, “I have a concert tonight.”

Oh, we laugh about it at the time (har, har), but in reality I had already determined that I would spend the evening catching up on chores and doing laundry (did I mention that my laundry pile seems to multiply exponentially each day). So, after swatting him with a folder and gathering my things to walk out the door, I start rearranging tasks in my mind that I can put aside for later. The phone rings as I am walking out of the classroom.

“Do you have any work for *Bob? I’ve got him in detention for two and a half hours and he has NOTHING to do!”

I’m thinking, why am I the one who has to find work for this kid? Of course he has work, he has a 43% in my class, but I don’t have his make-up work!

I don’t say that; instead I say, “Well, I’m walking out the door, but I’ll grab some worksheets that he is probably missing and he can work on those.”

Off we go! I throw the worksheets to Bob, who has been waiting by the door downstairs, and X and I dash for the car. Drive, drive, drive - we are home. X hops out of the car to check the mail and I park in the carport. As he walks up the driveway, I can see that he has one of those small white postcards from the bank in his hand; the kind that, upon pulling the perforated edges apart, reveals an overdraft. What the duck! I rip open the postcard thinking that I couldn’t possibly have overspent when I just deposited a money order from you-know-who in Cali not five days ago! Sure enough, a $70.00 charge for two items. Oh, the bank was kind enough to cover the check and ATM withdrawal that came in ON THE SAME DAY that my deposit was registered, but in their infinite fiscal wisdom they saw fit to register the withdrawals BEFORE the money order was registered. It’s a money order. Money orders can be cashed like…well…money. If I deposit a money order it should register immediately, like…MONEY. I look at the statement online. Yep, there’s my money order deposit, then the check and ATM withdrawal, then the $70.00 the bank took out to shaft me. Crap!

We go inside, and X starts on his homework as I call the president of the bank to complain. She’s looking into it. Um, yeah.

“Let’s go get dinner,” I say after X has worked on his Algebra and Latin for an hour.

Now, you may not think that going out to dinner is the most financially responsible decision after finding out you have just been charged $70.00 at the bank, but hell if I am in a mood to mess up my already messy kitchen further; and, after all, we do have a concert to attend tonight. After scrambling for the proper attire, we grab the double bass, which rides in both the front and back seats of our car, and head into town for dinner.

Yum, dinner, fine and dandy…moving on.

We arrive at SHS at 6:00 P.M. and X takes off with the bass that is, incidentally, taller than he is at this point in his development. I am left to park and twiddle my thumbs for what I am led to believe is one hour before the concert begins. There are not many people in the auditorium when I arrive, but it begins to fill up after I find a seat in the sweet spot. I cross my legs, look around, text Kat up in D.C. for a bit, and settle in to read a bit of Anna Karenina. Reading, reading…”My son is up there!”…shake it off…reading… “You know he’s been doing this since fifth grade”…Russian name, Russian name, rea…”Oh, yeah, that’s great. My son…blah, blah, blah.” Reading? “Blah, blah, blah, HI SON!” READING! I want to cry.

And then the 6th graders come onstage to tune…for 25 minutes. Twenty five minutes of tuning. TWENTY FIVE MINUTES OF TUNING! I hear scales; I hear squeaks; I hear giggles; I hear scratching bows; I hear stomping feet, clattering chairs, and stands being shifted about. One boy is merrily twirling his cello at the front of the stage; another is sticking the end of his bow in the ear of the girl sitting next to him. Squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk, squawk…that is a scale. Can you tell? No? I can’t either.

OK, I’m not going to rag on the 6th graders anymore, because once they actually start to play they sound very decent for their level of training; so, I’ll shift my ire to the family sitting behind me. They come in quietly enough, all ten of them; but then the babies get restless and start yammering and jawing in thick twangy accents. Mawmaw and Pawpaw start yakking loudly to one another about the youngun’s gettin’ restless; they compete with the 6th graders onstage for decibels as they argue over whether they should take the kids out because THEY are making too much noise, or whether they will miss too much if they leave, or whether the kids should be allowed to sit near each other since they’ll probably get in a fight. They do this through the sixth grade concert and continue into the seventh grade concert.

Seriously. I am a patient person. Those of you who know me know that I am a patient person. But tonight I wanted to turn around and scream, “YES! For god’s sake take the blabbering babies out of the concert. And YES! It means you will miss some of it. DO YOU REALIZE THAT YOUR CONVERSATION IS LOUDER THAN THE KIDS’ CHATTERING AND THE CONCERT ONSTAGE?”

You know I don’t do this though. Some of you would, but I don’t. I get up and go to the bathroom. Ah, quiet, solitude; all I need is today's Post. I return before X goes onstage and sit across the auditorium, on the quiet side of things. X and his group play and I am proud of them. Three years of hard work as a group, and they are sounding like peas to soup.

I am at home now, relaxing. I’ve checked Facebook and cracked open one of my last bottles of Magic Hat. The heater is running next to me. Tig is chasing hand shadows on the floor. X comes in to tell me that my beer is poison. I debate it; tell him to find the statement on the bottle that says it’s poison. Right there, where it says, "May cause health problems." Pish-posh, so it "may" be poison. I'll take my chances tonight.

Some evenings just need a bit of reflection.