Last week I had One of Those Days, the kind of day where I find myself wondering how I manage to keep it all together. After an ordinary day dressing children, making lunches, walking Emma to school, tidying, cleaning the bathroom, writing, writing the last of Christmas cards, picking Emma up from school etc etc, it was time to go to Sarah’s Christmas concert.
We had to be there at 4:00, after which I had another Christmas party to attend (one I had helped organize) and there’d be no time to dash home in between.
So at 3:55 I was rushing to get dressed, knowing that I was going to be at an adult party later on in the evening. I had about five minutes to get ready.
I am going to skip over the details about the sweater that shed all over my black pants, and the curling iron that died. I will also refrain from going into much detail about my lack of black stockings, and how, in desperation, I pulled on a pair of linen-coloured knee highs from the back of my drawer. Suffice it to say that I wasn’t feeling very well put-together by the time we all got to the Christmas concert.
I was seated in the auditorium of the school when I first realized the elastic in the knee highs had totally evaporated and were gathered around my ankles like Auntie Pearl’s support hose. What’s worse, while I was sitting the top of my boots didn’t meet the hem of my pants. It wasn’t just feeling horrible, it was visible to anyone who chose to look at my ankles. The fashion police were going to arrest me for sure.
So there we were, it was our last year at this particular school concert. It was exactly like every year. Rabid/crazed parents arrive two hours early (I am not exaggerating) to snag the best seats. Who are these people? I had heard stories of people putting their coats on a chair only to come back and find other parents moved the coats and were sitting in the seats formerly occupied by the aforementioned coats. What is wrong with these people? Don’t they understand the Coat on Chair Rule …the meaning of which spans time and continents? Everyone from here to Zimbabwe knows that a coat lying on a chair means that it’s SAVED for the owner of the coats!
Sarah’s group sang two Christmas songs. She spent half her time waving at someone other than us, her parents (mistaken identity!) and the other half with her hands in her mouth. From our vantage point it looked like she was flossing.
After he concert, after dinner at Newport (where my stockings slunk even lower into my boot, if that was possible), I dashed to Loblaws to pick up a cake for the next party and a pair of black stockings. So this is what I was holding while waiting patiently in the express lane: cake and black stay ups. (My preference. Remember the ode I wrote in a note to Cindy in our poetry class?)
I am fairly sure that the fellow behind me gave me a quizzical look as I stood there with my purchases. I returned the same with a glance down at his bag of dog food and bananas.
I rushed to the restaurant, dumped my stuff and found the ladies room to change my sorry hosiery. I felt self-conscious about the noise I was making because there was one other person in the ladies room the whole time I was there. Who knows what she was thinking. From my stall came sounds of unwrapping, tearing, cursing, punctuated with some hopping and zipping and rustling of clothing. She was still there when I emerged, washing her hands. I threw the bag, the packaging, and the old knee-highs in the trash can.
Fortunately for me, the rest of the evening unfolded without further event. But I will always have a pair of black stockings in reserve. I promise.
p.s. went to Barrymore’s this weekend. More to come. :)
