Back To School
My Archenemy is a Seven-Year-Old Boy and I’m O.K. With That
Bully my daughter? Be prepared for the wrath of soccer-Mom
One shouldn’t have an archenemy unless you identify as Spiderman, Batman, or Superman.
I’m not central to the Marvel or DC Universe, megaverse, metaverse, multiverse, or whatever our dystopian future holds. But I do have an archenemy. At the time of reckoning, he was 7 and I was 41.
Things started out innocently enough, as these blood feuds often do. I was volunteering at my daughter’s elementary school, helping her classmates with reading. For an hour each week I listened to second graders read at a faux wood table in the dimly lit hallway outside of Classroom 3 at “Lacking imagination, someone named this cinder block after the street it’s on” Elementary.
A few slicksters timed their bathroom breaks every week during designated reading time, but for the most part, the kids were delightful, engaged readers and tried their best. My favorite was cherubic Johnny (not his real name, lest the blood feud continue.)
Johnny seemed perfect. He was on time, respectful, worked hard, and even said he liked my sparkly Hello Kitty cell phone case.
