It’s never the big things that get to us. Well, maybe it is, but the small things can be just as upsetting…

I bought two beanbags a couple of months ago. The first time “the cousins” called round, a week or two later, all the kids had a diving match on them. As a result both bags were somewhat deflated and virtually unusable. I/ we had sore backs and sore arses from sitting on them/ on the floor thereafter. So I filled one with the other and resolved to buy some more ‘beans’ soon. Today, over a month later, I went and bought those beans. It didn’t have to be today, but well, if not today then when?

They came in a clear-plastic bag around 5ft tall/ 2ft wide.
25euros -sheesh! But that’s not the worst of it. I haven’t even begun -patience!

I brought the bag home and set it against the wall in the room nearest the front door. As one does.

I didn’t have much time before I had to collect my son from school, so I forgot about the bag o’beans. As one does.

Went and picked him up, then returned home. I had also forgotten his friend was coming with us today. No problem there.

So we get in the door, put down the bags, etc. and within 2 minutes there was a call for me to come quickly… You no doubt guessed it… the bag o’beans had sprung not one but two holes -one in the middle, the other near the bottom. Clearly my son had taken it upon himself to play punch bags (as his friend intimated, but I didn’t want to hear any more at that time).

I tried resting it in a position where the beans stopped pouring out, but though I was successful eventually, my actions increased the flow in the short-term. I wanted to cry. I kind of surprised myself at how upset I was. Yes it was distressing, but ultimately it’s a small problem I know.

Still I was very near real tears and feelings of total inadequacy. I scolded the boy of course -somewhat vociferously as you can imagine. He was cowed by this, but it must be said he wasn’t too bothered. His friend however looked like he wanted to go home, so I closed the door to that room and told them not to go in there for the rest of the day.

A half hour later or so (after I calmed down) I thought I’d take another look. “Sure how bad could it be?” …As soon as I opened the door again, I again felt depressingly helpless. It’s not that the whole bag had emptied across the floor, but it was clear anything I might do to clear it was going to result in more spillage. I got an extra-large black plastic bag from another room and lifted the bag o’beans into it, which of course saw more spurts of tiny aero-beans everywhere.

I could now hear it pouring into the black bag at an alarming rate, but at least it was into the bag now and not on the floor. “How did you manage to make those holes?” I demanded to know, at last feeling like I might be able to handle the answer. “He dived onto it!” his friend pronounced (with serious and weighty glee).

This set me off again, pleading with the 4 year old (5 in a couple of months) to have mercy on his poor father, threatening him with consequences should he not mend his ways, yelping at his lack of undivided concern at the melting of the universe his actions had set into motion.

Just then I thought of something… I was supposed to pick up my daughter at 3PM! I rushed to the kitchen and you can imagine my sheer and utter panic as I saw the time… 3:22!

AAAARRRRRRHHHHHHHHHHHEEEEEEIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!

To put it mildly, the boys were bundled into the car and a new trail of blazing rubber was burnt through the road. It usually takes 10 minutes to get to the school. I don’t know how long it did take, but 3:22 itself was 20 minutes too late -and I wasn’t even there yet!

She was the last one left, but thankfully a mother of another child had waited with her. I couldn’t even begin to explain why I was late (although I tried -and failed). “Sure don’t worry -it happens to us all” said the mother with a cheery wave.

On the way home, my daughter began with the “where were you?s” and I just wanted to die. What made me feel even worse (like an infinite mandelbrot set, dig deeper and this thing has layers on layers that never end and each one is as stupid and pointless as the last) was that I had updated the firmware on my phone earlier that morning. Usually an alarm goes off at 2:45 to remind me to pick her up, but because of this update the alarm had been wiped.

Stoopid is as stoopid does and believe me today was me at my STOOOPID WORST. It was the perfect storm of Mischeviousness + Stoopidity + Timing + Lack of Timing + Sheer Panic +Bad Luck.

And today is only Monday.