Just When It Couldn't Possibly Get Any Worse, It Gets Worse

I picked up the Stevieling from her grandparents place after school.

She was all abuzz about how one of her teachers had got 45 group ticket to see "Rent", which she assured me is the hottest show in the whole school. Everyone, and she means everyone is talking about the show, singing selections from it or putting on impromptu street theater versions of key parts of it. She had to get on line at 6:30 am to reserve herself one of the tickets, and there were already 15 kids there when she got on line.

Rarely have I seen her so excited about something to do with school, or anything really.

Later on she was racing around getting ready to go and play basketball and a heated discussion broke out between her and Mrs Stevie (while I was composing the last entry, actually) in which I distinctly heard the words "I'm sorry, but I've been looking forawrd to I-Con for a year now." come from Mrs Stevie.

I did something foolish and enquired what the problem was. I got my head bitten off for assuming that she hadn't heard me and asking again, when in fact the problem wasn't, for once, her increasing cloth-infested hearing but her salad-infested mouth. I wasn't looking, you see, I was typing.

It turned out that the proposed expedition to see Rent clashed with the Saturday of I-Con, a three-day SF convention we attend every year. Saturday is the best day of the con for me, since it represents the major autograph chances with the guest authors and this year Harlan Ellison has agreed to show. He used to come every other year, but it's cold and damp here during most I-Cons and Ellison is no spring chicken. I digress.

Thinking I could broker a solution of genius I said "Why can't she go to see Rent on her own while we do I-Con? My mistake was to smile when I said this, I think.

"Because I've already bought the tickets¹ and she already asked her friend Marlene to go with her"

Damnation! I usually buy the tickets, and I do it a bit later in the year. Mrs Stevie's eternal hunt for the bargain-priced advanced-sale tickets had hoist us on her petard. I thought for a second with a sinking heart and a squeaking wallet.

I'm gonna have to buy full priced tickets for the show. The Stevieling would probably take missing the show with good grace (she usually does in these sorts of situation) but I feel like crap just imagining how her little heart is breaking. Come I-Con saturday I'll be suicidal with guilt even though this is none of my doing.

Never, ever have kids.

Especially beautiful, talented, girl kids.

1. Non refundable↑