Bad Timing

I'm on the great hunt for a high school - in fact we have decided on one and my eldest has been accepted but in the interested of keeping life complicated, we're looking at all options to make sure we're making the right choice.  It's a bit like choosing a seat in a restaurant or finding holiday accommodation, I need to try them all before I decide which is the right one (which is generally ALWAYS the first one I looked at).  Everyone now knows you just have to roll with me, you can't break my process, the angst it causes to me isn't worth it.

And everyone else seems to be doing the same - it's a mad cycle of open days, fraught school yard conversations, testing, auditions, and good old fashioned schmoozing.  Although at times, I need to remember it's my son they're interested in, not me.  Especially not me.

There was an open day for a school we like a week or two back.  The kids knew I was trying to make an impression because I wasn't wearing shorts and thongs, my normal spring/summer/early autumn uniform, but was wearing a very sensible linen shirt dress and high heeled wedgies.  And I wasn't going to take a drink bottle in for them either (although it pained me as I knew there would be a sausage sizzle and they'd all be whinging for a drink afterwards - it's a school, I thought, there will be a bubbler, they'll survive).  So we went room to room, talking to teachers, talking to the very important looking enrolment officer (who actually is very important considering the power she holds), and we even had a very pleasant chat with the Head of School, by ourselves, where my eldest dazzled, and we attempted to razzle.

We walked smugly back to the car - even with two smaller boys bleating on about being thirsty, we'd managed to have a successful visit and meet the "right" people.

Until I looked down.  My very nice, conservative linen shirt dress was half undone, not by one or even two buttons, but enough buttons were opened that my very old, underwear with the faded pattern and nail polish splatters (don't ask) was on full display.  It's a bit like finding a piece of food in your teeth, you desperately backtrack to when it got in there, and then all the people you'd smiled at since.

I didn't need to.  I knew.
At least they'll remember us.