The shit blog of Paul Chris Jones

Dear Diary. I have to take 3-year-old to school. But he's sitting in the living room and refusing to take his pyjamas off. He keeps saying "I'm cold, I'm cold."

It's a struggle but I manage to get his pyjamas off and his school uniform on.

We make it out the front door. We're late now.

When we approach the school, I can see that the school gate is still open. I start running towards it like Indiana Jones running to a stone door that's closing downwards. Thankfully I'm not wearing a fedora that could fall off at the last vital second.

We get to the gate and it's still open. I praise God, Jesus, Mohammed and everyone.

The school janitor, Salvador, is standing there at the gate and frowning at me.

"You're almost late," he says.

Yeah, alright, Salvador? The world doesn't run by your clock, does it?

"Sorry," I say. Then I bend down to 3-year-old. "Here," I say to 3-year-old, "Your bag."

"I'm going to close the gate," Salvador says.

"Yeah, just a minute," I say.

I help 3-year-old put his school bag on. Then as I stand back up, Salvador closes the gate on me.

The gate's closed now because I was ten seconds late. At this school, being ten seconds late is a capital crime.

One of the moms is standing there watching, open-mouthed in shock. "What about 3-year-old?" she asks me.

I go round to the school's main entrance. Luckily the door there is still open. The headteacher's standing there, maybe so she can see who all the late kids are and add them to her kill list.

"3-year-old's late," says the headteacher.

I snap and tell her, "Fuck off. We've only arrived two minutes late. I'm not delivering briefings to the President. I'm just handing over a three-year-old child to your shitty school."

I don't say any of that, of course. I just apologise.

I can see Salvador lurking around in the background. "Fuck you, Salvador," I think to myself.

The headteacher looks with exasperation as 3-year-old slowly climbs up the stairs.

What kind of school only gives you a five-minute window to drop your kid off? Even the people change the tyres on Formula 1 cars mid-race have a bigger time window than that. Probably.