The Parent Trap, Act XXIX

With Mrs Ottawacker out wowing conference goers in Winnipeg, it was up to me to pull my weight and act like I knew what I was doing here in Ottawa. So far, so good. Ottawacker Jr came through the first night unscathed and, as a consequence, we started Day 2 in quite a good frame of mind.
 
Off he went to school, bright and early, carrying with him his rolled up poster for his presntation, which was about the same size as he was. Three minutes later, he was back.
 
“Daa-a-a-a-d?”
“Yes?”
“Can I have a ride to school, my poster is dragging on the floor. I don’t want it to be ruined. I really don’t want it to be your fault I get a bad grade.”
 
Faced with that sort of implacable logic, what can you do? So, I drove him to school, dropped him off close enough to the buildings to enable a smooth transfer of the poster to the mobile classroom in which he is suffused with knowledge, and went off to Farm Boy to get the food in for dinner. G)
 
A day’s work, then I pick him up from school at 3.40, drive down to his physio, sit and wait while his elbow ligaments are massaged, drive him home, cook dinner (shrimp and garlic brochettes with pasta), take him to his football practice for 5.45, drive home, clean up, go back to pick him up for 7.30, drive back home again, wait while he showers, check up on homework, sit down and watch 30 minutes of mindless American junk on tv, put him to bed, run the dishwasher, find the sock he’d left in a place you’d never expect to find it (behind the front door), come back downstairs, pour myself a drink, speak briefly over Skype to Mrs Ottawacker (suffering the dejected downward spike of one who has worked hard on a presentation, done well, but could have done better if only she had been, say, Marie Curie or Stephen Hawking), and fall asleep in the chair, exhausted, at 9.30.