A Day Off (for a married man)

A long Day Off stretched ahead of me. My schedule looked like this:

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Bliss!

“Oh, I booked you for an assessment at the gym at 6am” says my Aitch.

GYM? My shadow never darkens the door of any gym! She knows that! “Calm down, it’s with Tanya the biokineticist and it’s for Vitality points,” Aitch instructs me patiently. “And I told you about it” she reminds me.

Hmph! That rattled me. But, Oh well, thank goodness it’s early, the rest of the day will be just me and chilling.

Aitch is taking the younger to school and doing his class reading, so I suggest we meet for breakfast before her chemo, making my second appointment for the day. My day off is filling up.

At the gym Tanya worked my case with pushups and crunchies and other forms of torture – which seem like nothing compared to when she starts measuring me.

“It’s OK, just put 75kg” I said for weight.
“No I must measure” she says, hauling out the scale from under the torture bed. It was unfair, as she didn’t have one of these scales . .

. . so I had to take her word for my weight and her word was “92,8” – said ominously. Oh.

“99cm” I say as she approaches me with a tape measure (knowing that over 100 classifies one as obese in this freaky anal gym-world environment.).

“106” she deadpans. I clearly hear the implied “Jy’s obese, ou bees”.

But she’s very sweet in the end, telling me I’m absolutely perfect and supremely healthy if it wasn’t for the fact that I’m fat and unfit. I squeak into the bottomest of the “acceptable” rating. Up from “fair” six months ago (which is the last time I did any bending or pushing). Aitch will get her bonus Vitality points. Phew!!
Tanya gives me a list of stuff I must eat (crunchy and fruity) and stuff I must avoid (succulent and tasty).

I get home and Jess is waiting to be taken to school.

At breakfast with Aitch at Oscar’s on the Berea, I get prrring prrring (actually I got Reelin’ and Rockin’ as Jessie has changed my ringtone).
“Why aren’t you at the clinic?”
A mad scramble for St Mary’s hospital at Marianhill ensues, gotta stop at home to pull on some long pants – How was I to know? I’m on leave! (OK, if I’d read my sms earlier . . . ) – As I shovel a last mouthful of Oscar’s kipper into my beak, Aitch shoves a list into my hand.

So now my day looks like this:

6.00am Torture and Humiliation

7.10am Jess to school

8.00am Breakfast with Aitch

8.30am Eye Clinic volunteer duty
(arrived 9.20am – could get fired – yeah, right!)

1.30pm Fetch Jess from school

2.30pm Fetch Tom from soccer

3.30pm Take Jessie to swimming

4.30pm Fetch Jess from swimming

5.00pm Take Tom to cub scouts

7pm Fetch Tom from cubs

Jessie asked nicely to skip swimming. I said FINE. Tommy immediately said “Great, so I’m skipping cubs.” No way. It was the AGM and all the cubs were in full uniform. My fella had all his kit on and looked really spiff. So much so that his bare feet almost didn’t seem to matter. Except to Akela.

Bliksem! Tomorrow I’m going to take the day off. By going to work. This ‘Being Like a Mom’ lark is exhausting.

~~~oo0oo~~~