WELCOME! Welcome to “Old Post Friday”. It used to be “Old Post Tuesday”, but here we are. I’m sure no one read this, you can tell because only one person liked it, and it was the same person who commented. And I know her in real life… So… It’s possible she just read it out of pity.

Inyhoo, enjoy one of my very early posts. Again.

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Want to play a game of “Who’s the Asshole”? I’ll give you a hint, but only one.
It’s me.
I woke up late this morning, and scrambled to get both children ready to go to J’s kindergarten orientation. I walked in with one child attached to my leg and the other in her stroller. It was raining and the humidity was causing me to sweat profusely. It was precisely at that moment when I realized that I had forgotten to put on deodorant.
Awesomesauce.

There were seventeen million people in the kindergarten sized hallway where I met for the first time, sweating and shoulder to shoulder, the other parents that will be in my life for the next twelve years. I might have been in better shape with a shower and some deodorant.

It was explained to us that the children would be taken to the kindergarten room and I, along with my parental companions, would be taken elsewhere. The parents began to socialize. I was the only one with an extraneous child.

We were told to sit on benches. There was plenty of room in this place. I suddenly had a glimmer of hope that I might be able to stink and sweat quietly in the corner with my extraneous child, but it was squelched almost immediately. I picked a seat that I felt might allow me some stink and sweat space, and was immediately crunched in on either side by insecure moms who didn’t know anyone at the function, and therefore must glom on to someone who looks alone and sweaty. The presentation began. By the time the Daisy Girl Scouts lady was having her say, K was beginning to become restless.

In my rush to leave the house this morning, I had forgotten toys.
A long, loud, and fruitless search of the mom bag begins.
Maybe my keys would shut her up.
I received the stink eye from all the other parents of five year olds with last names that begin with A-L. The insecure moms that had originally crunched me in on either side began to move away. Assholes are generally unpopular, after all.

The child became more and more restless. She demanded Dora in a very loud voice. The other parents looks had become more and more nasty. Its possible that a subtle bird was released in my direction, and rightly so. After all, that sweaty smelly asshole is now loud as well, disrupting the school librarian (whom, by the way, is older than the dewey decimal system) from giving her speech on the kindergarten library. Riveting stuff.

In the packet of stuff that was given to me on the way in, there is a second name tag for J.

Well, who needs it, said I.
I gave it to the baby to play with. Crunchy crunch crunch, she played with the J sticker, until…

“You will find in your packet a second sticker, make sure you affix it to your child the first day of school.”

Please, please, please give it back K. Dear God, give it back, K.
Loudly, eventually, I regained the rumpled sticker from the disgruntled child.
Its obvious that the time had come to leave. Sadly, I gathered my belongings, and take the child out of the room. I think there was some muffled applause as the poor, sweaty, stinky asshole left the other parents of children with last names beginning with A-L in peace. Luckily, it wasn’t but five minutes until the whole thing was over, and sixteen million parents were enjoying refreshments provided by the lovely, hair sprayed, make-upped, ladies of the PTO.
Im pretty sure they will not be asking me to join their number. The other child returned, and gratefully I turned toward the car.

Today, I, the asshole, managed to alienate myself from all the parents of my child’s classmates, with last names beginning with A- L. But don’t worry, people talk.