Becoming The Muse

I never particularly liked school. It would not be a fair stretch to say that I disliked it immensely and from the day school opened I would be counting down the days to the next school vacation with weekends providing a brief respite. Naturally, I thoroughly hated those back to school commercials reminding you that the holidays were almost over…

Despite my love-hate-hate relationship with school, I never missed a single day of it.

I watch the next generation of kids and a part of me cant help sighing,as I think these lil ones are growing up coddled, one little sneeze and they wont go to school for the whole week, they so much as imagine they have a headache and no school yet will spend the day playing TV games. Must be nice. Maybe I am a little envious of how the older generation has grown less strict to their grandkids than they were with us.

Perhaps I was fortunate that I never fell seriously ill, but even the moments I came down with something I never missed a single class except maybe the first couple of periods when I would visit the doctor, get meds and then back to classes by the morning break. I used to have bouts of sore throats and inflamed tonsils that my parents considered having my tonsils surgically removed.

The problem eventually cleared but throughout the ordeals I still had a perfect class attendance.

Just my luck that when I got the chicken pox it was during the school holidays, so I never got to enjoy that: do not go to school so you don’t pass it on to the rest of the class.

I managed to never break a bone, but I did have an adventurous friend who in the course of primary school broke each bone in his limbs, at least once. He was the sort of person to act first, then think later and consequently got into lots of trouble. I on the other hand, was the observant kind, I watched what he did… then did not do it. Clearly that strategy worked cause I never broke anything…

The one time I had an Xray taken was when I fell off the bathroom sink trying to see myself in the mirror above the sink. I honestly thought I had broken several bones, my parents must have been hysterical as they rushed me to the hospital. The doctor may or may not have written on the Hospital Card: Child fine, mother hysterical or something to that effect.

I have had my fair share of scraps, bruises and the only other serious injury I got was when the drawer of steel cabinet fell on my big toe.. It didn’t break though but it broke off the nail on my big toe… The nail eventually grew back and even today if you compare the nails on my toes you can tell the odd one out.

I remember the pain, there was lots of pain. I could feel my pulse in my big toe, I was afraid to look because I thought my big toe had fallen off. I still went to school the next day, injured foot bandaged and in flip flops while the other foot was in socks and school shoes… adding to the unsteady limping gait… now that I think about it 🤔… not sure why I didnt just wear flip flops on both feet.

Fast forward to the present; I am battling for the remote control with my nephew, I want to watch the new episodes of Black Mirror and he wants to watch Cocomelon on YouTube… he didn’t go to school today because last night an unidentified insect bit him on the nose.. I suspect it was a mosquito, but it is what it is.

I suspect that the lockdown period during the pandemic when schools went for months closed down, has greatly contributed to school attendance being more of an optional sort activity and of course anyone presenting with anything remotely flu-like gets to skip school, cause what if its the dreaded rona…

How much school did you miss?.. How about work, do you get plenty of sick days?

~B