Page 2 of Pick-Up
Sometimes it feels like I’m beingPunk’d. Then I remember that the show went off the air like two decades ago and Ashton Kutcher is someone’s dad and, also, why would anyone want to punkme?
I should be so lucky as to garner that much attention. Lately, work is so slow, it feels like my email is broken.
And maybe it is. Because somehow, I have been left off the school email reminder about Silly Sock Day again, though I have tried to correct this issue four times already. And that is how I wind up at drop-off at 8:27 a.m. with a weeping five-year-old in my arms. A five-year-old wearing boring gray socks instead of the baseball-themed ones he’d been saving for this very occasion.
“Is Bart okay?” asks a school administrator standing at the entrance. The same one who is always standing there.
Bart is clearly not okay. All around us, parents play chicken on the crowded sidewalk, hurrying kids in oversize State backpacks toward the schoolyard before the bell. The deed done, they exhale and walk a little taller toward their cups of coffee, the morning’s chaos resolved. Helmeted grown-ups unchain bikes, some with enormous trailers attached for lugging kids, and cycle to work. Others matriculate toward the Prospect Park loop for a run, a prerequisite hobby in this green neighborhood. A few—one crew in particular each morning—stand around in clusters and chat, lingering long after kids disappear inside, the last guests at the procrastination party.
The stragglers eye me and Bart with equal parts amusement and pity. Most notably, we are being surveyed impatiently by my eight-year-old daughter, Annette, who stands at a far enough distance to separate herself from the scene.
“Can I go in now?” she says, widening her eyes. This issouncool.
“A little help?”
She shrugs behind Bart’s back. “How? I don’t carry an extra pair of weird socks in my pocket!” She’s not wearing silly socks either, but she doesn’t care. She’s not particularly interested in anything silly lately. She is tweening two years too early.
In her defense, she is usually very helpful. More helpful than an eight-year-old should be. And she has spent the whole walk to school trying to convince her little brother that, in her vast experience, Silly Sock Day is just a blip on the radar. That after the first five minutes of circle time, no one even remembers what day it is. Usually, Bart hangs on her every word, an unwavering disciple of the cult of Nettie. Today, he’s not having it. And so neither is she.
Triggered by the wordsocks, Bart begins weeping anew. Surrendering, I wave my daughter inside so she’s not late.
“I love you, Nettie!” I call. “Have a good day!”
She sprints away from my embarrassing sentiments and inside the black metal gates.
I am so tired.
“Bart,” I try, turning back to face him with practiced patience. “How about I give you my socks?” See? I am the Giving Tree.
He looks down at my feet, socks peeking out the top of my Nike high-tops. “They’re just black,” he hiccups.
“But they’ll be really big on you. That’s silly! Right? Giant socks?”
“Mom!” he groans like I know he will at fifteen too.
“What’s wrong?” the administrator presses, hovering over us now. Her requisite statement necklace sways as she moves.
Bart looks up at her, despondent. His tiny chin quivers. Then he looks back down at his feet. Can she notseehis gray socks? Can she not understand the atrocity she’s witnessing? He dissolves into tears again.
“There was a mix-up this morning,” I say, as much to him as to her. “No silly socks.”
“Ah. Did we miss the reminder?” she asks.
By we, she meansme. She looks at me with the same condemnation as she did on Pajama Day and Sports Day. I resist the urge to hiss at her.
“I didn’treceivethe reminder!” I insist, while my son wipes snot on my shoulder. It’s bad enough to be the “divorced mom.” I don’t want to be the “bad mom” too.
She nods like she doesn’t believe me. “Oh, well, that’s no problem,” she says.
Bart and I look up at her in her sweater set.Really?It sure seems like a problem. The mucus on my jacket is confirmation of my colossal transgression.
“We’ve got some supercool fabric stickers inside for decorating socks tomakethem silly. That’s even more fun than wearing the store-bought kind! Do you want to come check out the stickers, Bart? Make your own silly socks?”
He considers this, his grip on my sweatshirt loosening. “Do you have sports ones?”
“Maybe? We definitely have unicorns… and dinosaurs.”
Bart considers this. He has no use for unicorns, but aT. rexmight do the trick. Before he can overthink it, she takes his little marshmallowy hand and leads him just inside the door to where his teacher is waiting.
