Daddy Duty

It is morning, a school day, and the house is in chaos. The kids fight for the bathroom. Fists pound on a closed and locked door. Dirty dishes linger in the kitchen sink, beds lie unmade, and in the hallway I see some pajamas and a damp towel that were not there ten minutes ago. Messes follow children the way flies follow dung. The pounding on the bathroom door continues until the door opens a crack and a red slipper flies out, missing its intended target and coming to rest under the dresser, where it will remain, gathering dust.

My daughter is standing in her bedroom, stock-still, stark naked; she’s supposed to be dressed and brushing her hair. Her socks are on the bed, next to her underwear, but where is the outfit we laid out for her last night to avoid confusion and consternation this morning? The logical place to look is in the hamper, and of course that’s where I find them. I toss them on her bed, command her to get dressed, add an exasperated “for God’s sakes!” for good measure, and move to the next room to check on my son.

He’s back in bed, burrowed under three heavy blankets, moaning about how tired he is, how boring school is, how stupid his teachers are, and how there is nothing to eat in the refrigerator. Will I make him Cream of Wheat? Sure, when world peace breaks out and Californians embrace mass transit. How about oatmeal? Pancakes? Bagel with cream cheese? Cinnamon toast? No. Hell no. Never. Get out of bed, now!

My wife is in the kitchen, packing our daughter’s insulated lunch box with sliced kiwi, tortilla chips, a carton of apple juice, a bag of green grapes, a box of raisins, a granola bar and a ham and cheese sandwich. She is meticulous, my wife, and her lunches are masterpieces, though it’s a rare day when our daughter eats much, if anything; most days the lunch box returns in the exact condition it left in the morning.

My daughter hasn’t moved one inch. It’s as if she has been cast in bronze. I gather up her socks, underwear, jeans, shirt and sweater, push her toward the bathroom. Her hair is knotted, her teeth are funky and I know from long, hard experience that the minute she’s dressed she’ll make the announcement: I have to poop. This entails that she completely undress.

The clock in the living room is ticking without mercy. I hear a thud from the bedroom and know my son has slid out of his loft. When he appears in the living room he seems taller than he was last night, more of a mystery. How can my flesh and blood, my DNA, be so totally alien? He rushes past me humming a tune, opens the refrigerator and stands before it, as if a complete meal will fly out, occupy a plate and land softly on the dining room table. When nothing happens he settles for frosted flakes. Filling the bowl he spills cereal across the kitchen counter; he ignores the mess, sits down to eat. Why does he chew so noisily?

Miracle of miracles my darling daughter emerges from the bathroom, hair combed and teeth brushed, fully dressed, with no need to move her bowels. I’m pleased, but suspicious. We’re in the home stretch, nearly out the door, only a few minutes late, and then it happens, the last minute crisis – she has forgotten something without which she insists she cannot get through the day. What? An eraser, but not any run-of-the-mill eraser, a yellow eraser shaped like a Siamese cat that her grandmother brought back from San Francisco: very rare apparently, imbued with magic powers and valuable for trading on the playground, though she would never trade it away in a million years. Please don’t open your backpack is what I’m thinking as I see the meltdown coming. If she opens her pack we’re doomed to be tardy. If she opens her pack everything will come out in a tsunami -- books, folders, papers, pencil box, tissue paper, notebook, ruler, calculator, paperclips. Daughter begins to wail as if the end of civilization has arrived. I make the mistake of saying that it’s only an eraser -- that she has plenty of erasers to use until we locate the cat eraser, but I may as well have suggested that she cut the head off her American Girl doll. Wail grows louder. The backpack is open now.

We will be tardy.