Yesterday, I had to put down the stack of blue books and drive over to Ian’s school for the Holiday Show.

Ian’s Transitional Kindergarten is housed in a regular public school a half an hour away in FancyTown. Since Ian takes the bus and we don’t live anywhere near the school, I don’t know any of the other parents. I am not sure whether Ian’s special needs class interacts much with the rest of the school. When I walked into the auditorium, I found a seat as far as possible from the chattering parents and opened up the New Yorker. Then I pull outed my sign that said, "I hate all people. Leave me alone."

There were a lot of men there that afternoon. But the dads were of a different species than the shaved head, flannel shirt, goatee dads in our town. Clean shaven and v-neck sweaters.

First, the Kindergarteners filed into the auditorium. And the paparazzi went mad. Camcorders and two foot long zoom lens captured the moment. If I stood on tiptoe, I could see Ian in the front row looking alternatively concerned and amused. The music teacher led the kids in her own original holiday compositions about penguins and snow flakes. Ian wasn’t singing, but he looked happy enough up there. He was doing fine, until he caught sight of the microphone and ran up and started talking into it. I think he was giving the speech from "Robots," which begins "Ladies and Gentle-robots."  His teacher gave him the big hook and his performance was done.

So, I had driven a half an hour to this show and was being TORTURED by listening to other kids recite poetry and sing songs about penguins. Those shows are god awful, but are redeemed by the joy of seeing your kid on stage and fooling yourself that your kid is the most beautiful one in the room. And my kid was truly the most beautiful one up there. For the short time he was up there.

Now I was really grouchy. And then the lady next to me kept farting. And the New Yorker had too many short stories.

But as the kids were filing out of the room, Ian’s teacher stopped and pointed out my face in the crowd. What a happy boy. And I waved like all the other fools in the room.