In the future never indicate that your child is late for school because you screwed up. Always make up an imaginary appointments, fib and say they felt ill, or claim that THEY overslept. Admission to any other reason may cause others to stare at you in a shocked manner, raise both eye brows nearly off their head, or cause a repetitive “tisk-tisk” episode that could easily spiral out of control.

When I pulled up to Mira’s school 30 minutes later, her class was sitting outside in the middle of a fire drill. It was nice to see her classmates cheer as she approached them and I sheepishly admitted that we were late because I fell back asleep (in my current pregnant state I could not imagine this to be an unforgivable transgression). The teachers eyebrows shot up and disappeared into her hair line, the guidance councilor who was assisting shook her head seemingly ashamed for my daughter and some other grown-up whom I did not recognized tisked me!!

I shuffled off to the office to sign her in tardy and get a hall pass to walk her to class. I looked over the tardy book and noticed other’s reasons

“appointment”
“appointment”
“feeling ill”
“appointment”
“ill”

I have duely noted this for the future and wonder if instead of telling believable lies maybe I should go for gold. I think telling the school you were late because your “cat was on fire” or that “hover craft ran out of fuel” at least injects some levity into the otherwise cheerless lives of the office staff.