Yesterday, my beautiful wife had a meeting in town, so she volunteered to take the youngest to school. I decided that I would go to the gym anyway but a little earlier than I would were I to take him into school. As it happens, I was not leaving that much earlier–so the boy thought I was taking him to school. Even when I said I was not, he said I could just drop him on the way–it being Friday, he was eager to get to school because a fundraiser sells candy and snacks before school on Friday, and an extra couple of minutes in the morning would be that much more sugar he could consume before school. I declined, saying that I was not even going to be in the vicinity, taking instead a straight route to the YMCA, a more southern route east than would take me by his school.
Well.
I don’t know. I was lost in thought, I was lost in the metal, but I missed the highway entrance that would have spirited me to the gym ricky-tick. Instead, I took the next right, which is Battlefield Road. Which is the route to the school.
So I passed a block and a half south of the school anyway on my way to the gym.
It occurred to me as I neared the school that I could pull up to the front door, where the school employees with the thermometers await, and turn to the passenger seat, and then look in the back seat, and then drive off as though I had forgotten my son at home to amuse the custodians of the COVID protocols. Of course, my wife would arrive with the child a couple minutes later, and he could explain to them that I was going to the gym. After all, the people at the school have learned I have odd sense of humor.
I did not, though; I don’t know them that well. And, to be honest, I wanted to get to the pain awaiting me at the gym as soon as possible.
Two roads diverged on a morn, and I—
I took the one less likely to
get the Division of Family Services called on me.
