Does anybody have any idea how any of this is supposed to go?
You know, back to school. Back to work. Back to the fall routine.
Back to the manic morning shuffle. The back-to-school puzzle. How all the pieces fit together, interlocking in a chaotic ballet of furious activity and utter panic.
When people scream, “Oh, the humanity!”
And someone else screams back, “There’s no time for ‘humanity!’ Forget your shoes and get in the car. Your school will be fine with bare feet.”
Amidst this madness, I often think to myself that this must have been what it was like when the meteor took out the dinosaurs. Only, that was calmer.
Like so many households across the country, mine is beginning the post-summer migration back to school. In our house, there are lots of different schools to return to. I work and teach at a college. That’s ONE. My wife is a pre-school teacher. That’s TWO. And my daughter is going into her sophomore year of high school. That makes THREE. THREE different schools!
HOORAY!!!
And amongst us, we can’t find a soul who can remember how this whole gig works.
Because, in our defense, there hasn’t been anything resembling “normal” in a very long time. Last fall was pretty much a wash thanks to COVID, and then anything before that feels like it was back in 1886. (Then I think it was OK to get dropped off in your bare feet.)
How do you transition a lollygagging summer house back to school-time mania?
Like school supplies. Do they still do that? I have no idea what high school sophomores need. I barely know how to carry on a conversation or not get hit with a pillow when I walk into her room.
The older your child gets, the less you worry about their back-to-school supplies. It used to be a military-like operation with long checklists and scout missions to search for colored pencils or binders adorned with kittens. But now, we sweep everything off her desk into a backpack and call it “resourceful” or “environmentally-friendly.”
“You got a pencil?” I asked her the other day.
“Somewhere,” she replied. “But the eraser is gone, and since there’s no sharpener in the house, I had to gnaw the wood down with my teeth. Is that toxic?”
“Not if you can draw breath afterward,” I said. “Now, here’s some Christmas wrapping paper to use as a notepad.”
The other hang-up in our house is thanks to the animals. SO MANY ANIMALS!!!
A cat who needs to be found and kicked out. Two chickens who are demanding food by banging concrete blocks together. A dog who needs a walk, but has decided that my need for haste shall be matched by her need for sloth.
The dog has no concept of what it means to be in a rush. That’s just not in their DNA. (Unless it’s dinner time.)
And in my haste and impatience, I can’t seem to understand that the more I curse and growl and say things like, “For Pete’s sake, pee already!” just makes her think she’s in trouble (she is!) and that she has a bladder at all.
Oh, and here is the wonderful thing about animals: They can sense when you’re stressed and in a hurry. They instinctively know when you’re struggling. And thanks to this animalistic intuitiveness, they know just the right thing to do: Like throw-up multiple times! Because, yeah, we have time to deal with that. And they think, “you know what, I’ll make it a scavenger hunt. So, they have to search all around the house for my special little spots.” Nothing like cat vomit to take your mind off how you’re running late for work or school.
My other struggle is trying to remember everything I need to do. Once I have a routine – a rhythm – I’m in great shape. All I need is the step-by-step process, and then a little time to master it. But until I do, I stumble and bumble my way along. I forget important steps. Like getting half way to my daughter’s school and realizing she’s not in the back seat. (The dog is there, for some reason. And there are frantic texts coming from my kid that say, “You left me AGAIN!?! I can’t believe the state hasn’t put me in foster care!!!”
Or I forgot to eat breakfast. Or shower. Or … PUT ON UNDERWEAR!!! How did I forget that? And why didn’t anyone put it on the back-to-school checklist?
But we still have a few more days to get it together. We all do. Time for running drills. Practicing routines. A few dry runs. Gathering supplies. Figuring out the cat’s new hiding spot. And maybe even getting a tattoo on my forearm. It will read: “Don’t forget your daughter … or your underwear!”