day of the demons

After my 5 visits to Service Ontario at Bay and College, in pursuit of an ultimately (or perhaps penultimately) flawed driving license, I was ready to give the place a wide berth. Sigh. The best-laid plans of woman.

With driving license in hand, insurance arrangements made, husband flown off to work in Boston for the day, and grandparents either asleep or off sightseeing, Friday morning was allocated for me finally to acquire the family car. Negotiations with the dealership netted me a lift from Brian the successful salesman and off I went. While being shown the intricacies of our new behemoth of a vehicle (so much more technically demanding than when we last bought a car almost 9 years ago) my phone rang. Elder child's school announced itself on the display. I answered, of course expecting the customary reassurance that all was okay but that I needed to complete some forgotten form.

But no. 'Hi, this is the school, your son's had an accident. The bleeding has mostly stopped but probably he needs a doctor.' Heart lurching I waited to be informed which bit of anatomy suffered the damage: his finger. Thank heaven not his head but fingers are pretty darned important too. Echoes of the game Clue(do): who, how, what, with what? It was grade 7s in the art room with the scissors and duct tape, it seems. I promised to get to my treasured child ASAP and was then forced to listen to the remainder of Brian's instructions before I could drive away. I did so with near zero attention. I handed him a check, a credit card, a debit card, no doubt my library card too-- anything to get me out of there. If not for the plate glass window between my new car and the street, I probably would have just driven away with him in tow.

When I finally escaped I drove to the school and then realized I had no idea how to approach it on wheels. A parking space appeared immediately in front of the building, behind another car, and I hastily fed the meter a 'toonie' or $2 coin and flew into the building. Slightly wild-eyed, I demanded my son's whereabouts from the bemused school secretary, who obviously had no idea why I was there. A teacher emerged from the corridor and led me to my poor child who sat contentedly in the lunch room eating a slice of watermelon and watching television, a raggedy bandage on his ring finger. A sigh of relief from both of us.

Of course I had not yet (still have not) organized a family doctor nor did I know where to find an emergency room. The teacher suggested a walk-in medical clinic at.... Bay and College. Of course. Of course. The school secretary, enlightened as to why I appeared (I guess bleeding children are a common enough phenomenon that their existence is on a need-to-know basis only, but I would have thought that the school office would get a report?), suggested that the hospital behind the school might have an emergency room. Might? Wouldn't you think that's something a school's employees would need to know? Not in Canada, I guess. We could walk to the hospital.

But when we passed the car, a bright yellow parking ticket waved to us on the windscreen. I had managed to park in a school bus loading zone. My first time ever parking that car. What does it all mean? So, having to remove the car anyway, we drove off. Bay and College beckoned.

At the clinic, the receptionist squinted severely at my temporary health card and said 'This is expired. You'll need to pay $100.' How can it be expired, I asked, when I only received it a couple of days ago. 'Oh yes, you're right, it's good till October 30. My mistake.' But too late, I had been on the verge of emotion and out came the tears. Only one or two but enough to alert 12-year-old son, who gently put his arm around my shoulder. My poor little injured boy, now comforting his old mom (old mind you, but 10 years younger than she was when she moved to Toronto). Is this the beginning of the end? The fledgling looks over the edge of the nest...

As we waited, husband phoned from Boston to ask how everything is going and whether I succeeded in buying car. 'Yes, we have a car. Have you had your meeting yet?' I inquire. 'No, I'm about to start,' he replies. 'Then everything's fine. Call me later.' 'Why,' he askes suspiciously, 'have you crashed it already?' At least I could reassure him on that score. So far.

Eventually treatment is received, free and fair, competent and clean. Son, freshly bandaged finger, my parents (who joined us there) and I wander till we find the car (no ticket!) and wend our way home. There we find in-laws, not up the CN Tower as planned, but in our sitting room, nursing mother-in-law's bruised and bloodied face, as she had tripped over a loose paving stone in front of the tower and is now recovering on our sofa. Father-in-law tried to phone me but of course I was not at home, and in his distress he phoned my old UK mobile number. That's in the kitchen drawer.

Late, I rush off with my mother in tow to retrieve younger children from school. We won't make it in time so I ring a friend and ask her to gather up smallest child who can't be released without an adult. Luckily, they don't seem too picky about which adult it is, and by the time my mom and I arrive, the 7-year-old is happily snacking on friend's cookies.

Home again. Except for younger children, none of us has eaten lunch, and my parents not even breakfast, so we troop across the street to '*$s' as elder son calls the place (aka cappuccinos-r-us). Clustered in a clucking, buzzing huddle (chickens come to mind) we consume quantities of caffeine and pastry, licking our real and spiritual wounds. It must work because behind us, sitting quietly and blamelessly on her own, a young woman spills her entire grande latte over herself, her bag, her book, her leather coat, the floor. Clearly, the demons have left us and begun to torment her.