Sloppy rain slapped the windshield of the minivan as I drove my almost 3-year-old daughter to dance class. It was the kind of rain that didn’t know if it was splat or snow, so it picked something in between – splow. And it had been splowing all day.
The Girl, who said nightly at dinner she was more thankful for her once-a-week dance class than she was for Mommy, Daddy or carbon-based life on Planet Earth, sat in the back of the van, far enough from her brother they couldn’t hit each other, and kept us up-to-date on our progress.
“We’re almost to dance class,” she said as the traffic light turned green.
“We’re not going to school,” she said as we drove past the street she went down five days a week as her mother took her older brother to preschool.
“We’re almost to dance class,” she said as we went past the convenience store a few blocks from the dance school where she learns how to tap every Monday night.
“We know,” her older brother said, wishing he sat within arms reach.
As I pulled into the parking lot of the dance school, I knew something was wrong. No lights shone in the building and the parking lot was bare. Well, except for the splow.
Insert expletive here.
Splow built on the windshield as I sat in the driver’s seat of the minivan, the almost 5-year-old Boy in the back growling at the Girl as she kept saying, “We’re at my dance lessons.”
Darn the weather. Now I had to deal with something explosive, something as dramatic as a future pimple on prom night. My little girl wouldn’t get to enjoy the thing she talks about the entire week – and it was due to something she didn’ t understand – splow.
“Uh, pumpkin,” I started, thinking about all the tears that would soon be shed – mine, not hers. “The dance school is closed. You won’t have tap lessons tonight.”
(Insert the sounds of dolphins.)
“Why?” she said through budding tears. A child doesn’t really ask questions. That would mean they wanted an answer.
Oh, lord.
Our homeward conversation was like …
“I want to go to dance lessons.”
“There aren’t dance lessons tonight.”
“Why?”
“The roads are too slippery.”
… I was living …
“I want to go to dance lessons.”
“There aren’ t dance lessons tonight.”
“Why?”
“The roads are too slippery.”
… my life over, and over …
“I want to go to dance lessons.”
“There aren’t dance lessons tonight.”
“Why?”
“The roads are too slippery.”
… again.
“This is dumb,” the Boy said. I slowly nodded. He’d said what I couldn’t. “You can’t dance tonight.”
News of an imminent asteroid impact with Earth that would only kill cartoon ponies, cute fuzzy bunnies and Strawberry Shortcake might have made her cry as much as missing dance class.
But I doubt it.
