Out, damn teens, hubby, pool!
The last few weeks of the school term are complete hell. I have a million things to do before I can go on holiday.
I stumble into purgatory with the writing of exams. This year, I’m in for Grade 8 and Grade 11. For the parrots of my generation, outcomes-based education is no walk in the park, especially if you live in Joburg and parks are for people snorting light bulbs and self medicating from brown paper bags.
The afternoon before the Grade 8 French exam, my teen Einstein discovers she has left her books in her school locker. And the locker is locked for the night. A friend down the road manages to photocopy some crib notes before supper. C’est la vie. Ask President Zuma: who needs to be globally competitive?
Teen Einstein also has some interesting learning methods before her Life Sciences exam. Radio Highveld is on full volume, she is cramming PlayStation while flipping through her file like Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man memorising the telephone directory. I close the door and self medicate on “dooswyn”.
My Grade 11 teen is writing English today. No stress, she works conscientiously throughout the year. Half an hour before her three-hour exam she is conscientiously studying the back of her eyelids. I wake her up and she gets to class with 10 minutes to spare.
In the car on the way to school, she is speed reading summaries of Macbeth and Life of Pi. Have I read the texts? She needs to know what the main themes are.
I have been studious. I am prepared. I tell her that Life of Pi is about survival through accommodation and compromise. Like tidying her room if she doesn’t want to get thrashed and grounded.
Macbeth is about an abused parent with three ignorant children who failed their exams and never made it to university. No, that was King Lear, I am confused. Macbeth is about a horrible woman who has ideas beyond her station and manipulates some poor sap to get her evil way.
I get home to find the children’s father stationed in bed. He has been sick for the past few days and his nose has been cluttering up my peace, snarfing its way through the toilet paper supplies. I am cautiously solicitous. I suggest he gets an X-ray. And bundle him out of my house with sweet kisses and a don’t-come-home-unless-you’re-dead.
Finally. The kids are at school, Macbeth is dispatched to his doctor and, at last, my home is mine. I go into my office and review my list of Things to Do Before I Go on Holiday. Top of the list is “finish draft three of manuscript”. I go outside and inspect my asparagus plants. They are growing. I pick the dead heads off the rose bushes and give up trying to remove a furry caterpillar from the bay tree.
I go back inside and flip through the manuscript on my computer screen. I despair. I consider rewriting the book in the present tense and changing the main character into a 450-pound Bengal tiger. I despair some more and check out my To Do List: “presents for the children’s teachers”.
I make a list of the teachers whose names I can’t recall. There is Mrs X who tells me seven times a year that the perfect boy child won’t sit still and do his work. I must do something. There’s the Grade 8 teacher who says that Einstein never comes to class on time. Can’t I do anything?
During the year, we have brain-stormed several options: their suggestions aretherapy, OT, structured play time. I’ve told them I’m still in denial about therapy and have no time for structured play – I have a manuscript to write.
My suggestions for them are culled from some tried-and-tested remedies from my own, happy, school days: detention – or hey – how about writing lines? I must learn how to be a teacher . I must learn how to be a teacher.
I cross off presents for recalcitrant teachers and go down the list: “costume for the perfect boy child’s school play”. The new jeans have been bought but need hemming. Mr Price doesn’t have kids’ sizes to fit perfectly rounded boy children. I delete: “fix sewing machine” and hack a half metre off the length of men’s jeans and tack a hem. No time, no time. I have a manuscript to hack and tack.
I am contemplating switching on my computer while I chat to the pool man about cutting down the trees to stop the baby weaver birds from dropping into the pool and clogging up the creepy crawly.
I weigh myself to see if I’ve shed 10kg so as not to mortify the teens on the beach. I weigh myself again and add: “buy full body wet suit” to the To Do List.
I’m thinking about the manuscript and peeling potatoes, when the teens drift in from school. They wreck the kitchen making brain food and go and study for the next day’s exams in front of the television. I cast an eye over my exam schedule. Tomorrow, I have Afrikaans and maths to fail.
I am mining my daily horoscope for divine inspiration, when the teens take advantage of the advert breaks in their television studies to come and subvert my destiny in front of the computer. Next week they are finished with exams. I can take them Christmas present shopping, to movies, for haircuts, leg waxes. I add: “get reduction in school fees” to The List.
I tell the teens I am very, very busy and can’t chat and dally. I really, really can’t. I have a deadline to meet and they have exams to pass.
We go and make popcorn and watch South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut. We turn up the volume and sing along to the tunes. We are word perfect.