Registering 0-year-old's birth
8:30 am
Dear Diary. 4-year-old and I went to the local newsagents this morning, before school, to get the latest Peppa Pig magazine. Well he's not going to get a copy of the latest Playboy, is he? He's only four years old. Anyway, we got there, and the newsagents was closed. I don't know why it was closed. It was supposed to be open according to the opening hours written next to the door.
So 4-year-old and I hung around for a bit, like two hoodlums craving black tar heroin, except instead of heroin, 4-year-old wanted a Peppa Pig magazine.
Finally, 15 minutes late, the man came. He put up the shutters and opened the door. 4-year-old and I went inside. We looked around for the Peppa Pig magazine but it wasn't there.
"Do you have the latest Peppa Pig magazine?" I asked the man hopefully.
"Sorry, don't have that," he said. "Oh- hang on. Wait a sec. I might have it here in these new deliveries." He flicked through a pile of magazines. 4-year-old and I looked hopeful. "No- no, sorry. It's not here. I don't have it," he said finally.
Just as I was thinking about reporting this man to the council for his shoddy business practices - failure to adhere to opening times and failure to stock popular magazines - 4-year-old interrupted: "I want a different magazine, Daddy."
4-year-old looked through the magazines and pulled out one with a Lego Marvel magazine. "I want this one Daddy."
The price was €4.99 so I pulled out my card and paid. Okay, the price was steep, but the magazine came with a Minifigure, so I guess it's worth it.
9 am
Every morning is a race between me and Salvador. Salvador's the man who opens and closes the school gate in the morning. He only opens it for five minutes, and if you're not there during that five minutes, then you have to suffer the humiliation of taking your kid to the main entrance instead.
Salvador almost beat me this morning. On the way to school, I realised I'd forgotten 4-year-old’s school apron and we had to go back home. By the time we got to the school, it was 8:59, one minute before Salvador closes the door. Salvador saw us running to the gate and said, "Come on 4-year-old, I'm closing the door now." And I was like, we still have one minute left! It's only 8:59!
Tomorrow a new race begins. I'm not going to let Salvador beat me. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.
10 am
Girlfriend, 0-year-old and I are in a waiting room in a government building. We're here to register 0-year-old's birth. . A sign says "Aforament 10 persones" (10 people maximum) but there's 14 people in the waiting room, including Girlfriend, 0-year-old and me. This is what late-stage COVID looks like: people don't follow the rules anymore.
Outside the room, people are talking, I can't see them but I can hear them. Their voices echo around the large building. Inside the room it's quiet. Most people are just sitting silently. A couple with a baby in a pram are talking in hushed tones. There's the occasional loud drone of a motorbike from the street outside.
A begger comes in and starts talking to the security guard. "I have to come here tomorrow to register my son," he's saying. Then he bends over the security guard's desk and he starts checking the names on the appointment list.
A woman comes over to the beggar. "Hey!" she says. "I know you!"
The beggar looks surprised. Who is this woman?
"You asked my daughter for ten euros the other day!" she says. "I want that money back!"
"That wasn't me," says the begger, although he was obviously lying. "That must have been someone else."
"I know it was you because I see you begging outside here every day! So give me my daughter's money back!"
The people in the waiting room are looking over now to see what the commotion is about.
But in the end, the begger doesn't give the money back.
*****
We've been in this waiting room for 25 minutes now. I wish COVID was still a big major threat, because then the appointments would run on time. Ah, those good old COVID days, when appointments ran on time! Now COVID's pretty much over, and all the appointments run an hour behind again. Fuck sake. How does the government expect me to work and pay taxes if they keep me waiting around all day? Girlfriend's already filled out all the forms they need; now we just need to hand them over and sign something. It should all just take five minutes. But no.
I can see four women working behind the desk. Christ knows what they're doing. I know what they're not doing: they're not serving me, that's for sure. They seem to all be absorbed with their computers. Every few minutes, one of the women gets up and calls someone's name, but it's never my name, the only name that matters.
*****
Outside, it's Spring. The trees have grown buds of new leaves, bright and eager to grow and meet the world. The sun is shining down, spreading its warmth and happiness to the people below. And the sky is a perfect blue, an endless space of possibility and freedom.
And I'm stuck in a waiting room. We've been waiting 40 minutes now.
A woman at the desk calls Girlfriend's name. Except she struggles with the pronunciation and says, "Kastu... rye?"
Girlfriend and I get up and go to the desk. We have to fill in a form with our details and 0-year-old's details. We take the form over to another desk to fill it in. Girlfriend whispers to me that this form isn't even important, it's just "for statistics".
I have to write my level of education and my job. Since the form isn't important, I put down that I have a PhD in Astrophysics and I'm a director of Facebook. I don't really write that, of course. Girlfriend makes me write the truth: I only have a Bachelor's degree and I don't have a job. (Or at best, you can consider me self-employed.)
0-year-old's awake. He's in his pram. He's quiet — as long as he has his dummy, he's content. And in fact, now he's falling asleep again. His eyes roll up in his head, but in different directions, like the clown in the latest movie version of Stephen King's It.
*****
We've been here for 70 minutes now. Fuck me. Every day there's something that eats up my time. On the weekends it's 4-year-old. Now it's this.
Okay, we're finally finished. Total time spent here: 1 hour 13 minutes.
*****
We get home at 12:45, almost three hours after we set out this morning. To be fair, we made a stop at a cafe for breakfast and so Girlfriend could breastfeed 0-year-old, and we also stopped at a supermarket to buy groceries. But still.
5 pm
This evening, I took 4-year-old to his swimming class. After the class, I was getting 4-year-old dressed as he played with his new minifigure. It's a minifigure of Loki from the Marvel movies.
I'd just pulled 4-year-old's trousers up when he said, "Daddy, Loki doesn't have his stick."
I looked at the minifigure of Loki. It was missing its sceptre.
"Well, we'll have to look around and find it," I said. "You had it a minute ago. It must be here somewhere."
I got down on my hands and knees and scoured the floor. At the same time, 4-year-old did fuck all to help.
"Daddy, I want Loki's stick," he said.
"Well, maybe you should help look?" I said while peering under the lockers. Then I saw something. I pulled it out. It was just a screw.
4-year-old continued sitting there, doing fuck-all to help, while I started looking through my bag to see if the sceptre had landed in there somehow.
By the way, we're not talking about a life-size sceptre here. We're talking about a Lego-sized sceptre, something two centimetres tall and about as thin as a toothpick.
I considered giving up the hunt and declaring Loki's sceptre a lost cause. We have other Lego weapons at home - maybe Loki could wield a machine gun instead.
But I couldn't give up. The sceptre had to be somewhere. I'd seen it myself only two minutes ago. Besides, that sceptre had a very small Lego infinity stone on it, and infinity stones are the most powerful objects in the universe (or at least, the Marvel universe). So I couldn't just leave it lying around. Especially not in a kids' changing room. Think about the danger it could cause.
Suddenly I had an idea where the sceptre might be.
"Pull your trousers down," I said to 4-year-old.
He looked at me confused. "My trousers?" he said.
"Your trousers," I said, excitedly. "Pull your trousers down."
Luckily there were no other parents around to hear me. Anyway, when 4-year-old pulled down his trousers, there was the sceptre, inside his trousers. 4-year-old had been unwittingly carrying one of the Marvel universe's most dangerous weapons next to his crotch. It must have fallen in there while I was getting him dressed.
Leave a comment