How to be the World’s Worse Mum: Step 1 The Trousers.

In the maelstrom of a Monday morning there is a simple call,
‘Where’s my school trousers?’
It’s a heart stopping moment.
I check the ironing pile.
Nothing.
I check the drying rack, nothing.
I open the washing machine door and peer inside. There’s a fusty smell from the damp clothes that haven’t yet been unloaded and have been sitting there since Friday night.
‘Do we have any?’
I reach inside the near festering heap of wet clothes and find them.
‘’Won’t be long,’ I call.
The ironing board is clanged open. I put the kitchen heater on, and set the iron to its highest setting.
The radio is counting down the minutes we have left before we have to dash across town. My hair is wet, wild and uncombed and it’s dripping down my back as I stand on the icy kitchen tiles.
‘Where are they?’ The voice has come closer. ‘Oh!’ The teenager is standing at the threshold of the kitchen as steam puthers from one of the wet trouser legs in an ominous mushroom cloud.
‘It won’t take long,’ I trill.
Only teenagers can deliver ‘The Look’. It’s a searing stare, a glance that reduces you to your lowest common denominator. It’s a look that can fraction your soul into a million pieces of guilt; I meet his eyes expecting it, but I don’t get ‘The Look’, instead I get something even worse.
‘Oh, that’s okay,’ the teenager says calmly, ‘I’ll just go and pack my bag and make my breakfast. Don’t worry about it.’ He walks calmly away.
Steam is filling the kitchen in some sort of primitive thermo-nuclear reaction as I attempt to iron the trousers dry.
‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll wear them anyway, I don’t mind them being wet,’ he calls. There isn’t a trace of sarcasm in what he says. He means it.
I breathe in the steam and frantically try to iron dry the pockets and the waist band.
‘It’s not a problem.’ he says as he comes to watch, ‘I’ll be cool wearing them. The school is really hot.’
I have visions of him walking through the school leaving a trail of dripping water along the corridors; or of him leaving suspicious damp stains on every chair he sits upon; or even of him disappearing in a cloud of water vapour as he gently steams by a radiator. My heart fractures into a trillion pieces of guilt as I visualise each scenario.
I swipe the iron over the trousers and bow my head like a penitent sinner.
The trousers are so dry by the time I’ve finished that their material has practically metamorphosed into a new chemical element.
The teenager calmly takes them, dresses, and then waits patiently by the front door; as I rush upstairs to comb my hair and then rush downstairs to find my bags.
He opens the door and walks serenely outside looking immaculate; whilst I tumble out of the house behind him Neanderthal style and trail after him to the car.