So the 9-Year-Old is taking violin lessons at school, and since today he has music class, he of course gets on the bus without his violin. This means that I have to deliver it to him at school, which is irksome because his school is located in pretty much exactly the opposite direction from home as work and it's time consuming and a pain in the neck and irksome. So I get to the school with the damn violin, and I walk up to the nice person behind the desk whose job it is to interrogate strange grownups, and, if they prove hostile, to forcibly prevent them from running amok in the corridors splattering fingerpaints and squirting juice-boxes on the terrified moppets.
The nice woman asks me the 9-Year-Old's name, which I provide as politely as I can, though I am grouchy. Then she asks me his teacher's name -- and this is a Problem.
See, his teacher is a wonderful person, very professional, very good with the kids. I have nothing but good things to say about her. Unfortunately, however -- and I am not remotely making this up -- her last name is a homonym for a very, very nasty Naughty Word indeed. When Molly I first told me what it was, I genuinely could not believe it, but blinked at her in horror. "He's being taught by Mrs. WHAT?" No joke, her name cannot be repeated without a double-take.
Now, since I'd spent most of the morning grousing to myself in my Internal Monologue about the Terrible Irresponsibility of My Forgetful Progeny, as soon as this pleasant woman asked for the name of the boy's teacher, I could not remember her name at all. Nothing came to mind but a vile stream of foul obscenities. I blanked, I panicked. I knew she goes by Mrs. + a Dirty Word, but apart from that, nothing.
Ahem. Here, for posterity, is a record of my Thought Processes as I stood out in public in the middle of an elementary school lobby desperately racking my brains for the name of the wonderful person entrusted with the intellectual and social development of my beloved son six hours a day, five days a week:
"Oh, uh, wait... Mrs. Fukk? No, that's wrong... Mrs. Slutt! Oh, no, right, Mrs. Kumm... oh dear... Mrs. Kokk-Nobbler! Geez. Mrs. Bigtitz? Uh... Mrs. Sittshtayn? Mrs. B. J. S. Allnightz? Mrs. Farte? Mrs. Runnypoops? No? Hold on -- no need to call security -- it's Mrs. Dingleberry W. Nutt-Sack! Mrs. Greasypubes! Mrs. Dilldoe! Mrs. Cunnilingus Q. Asstomouth! Aieee!" (Exits school rapidly, pursued by security guard)
What I had to do was blush beet red and say, "gosh this is so embarrassing, I can't recall," collect a look from the woman at the desk that informed me I am an Uncaring Father, slink back to the car, and drive to work in quivering shame.
A hell of a way to start the day. Bleah.