MAN VS CHILD (HOME... BUT NOT ALONE)

If you look carefully, you'll find items from each of the major food groups

The Domestic Manager has upped and left me. Not permanently. At least, I hope not. Geez, maybe she has... No, surely I would have noticed if she'd left me for good, although being a bloke, active listening isn't one of my strong suits. Now I think of it, me being a terrible listener would itself be a great reason for calling it quits. But no, I'm pretty sure she's just gone to a work conference in Sydney for a week.

(Either that, or she's left the country with someone CALLED Sydney)

Whatever. The upshot is, I've been left completely and utterly alone, with no-one to fend for me or to protect me in the urban wilderness. She's literally failed to provide me with the necessaries of life. Now I am cold. I am hungry. And I am very, very afraid.

I'm cold because there seems to be some sort of latent Scottish ancestry in my gene-pool that prohibits me from turning on the heater when I'm the only person in the house. I'm hungry because it turns out eating 2-minute noodles straight from the packet isn't actually as nutritious as it sounds. I'm afraid because I am currently under attack from two of the most devastating weapons of mass-destruction known to mankind; my children.

I'm exaggerating of course - I know how to cook 2-minute noodles (although I've always been mystified it still takes 2 minutes even when you do them in the microwave). In fact, since the Domestic Manager deserted me, I've gone to the trouble of cooking a few real dinners. Nachos counts as a "real" dinner if you serve it with a salad, right?

I'm not exaggerating about the kids though, or the fact I'm currently fearing for my life. Don't let their ages fool you. At 11 and 8, that's a combined experience of 19 years of concerted psychological warfare and they have an impressive arsenal at their disposal as a result.

They began the assault with perhaps the most obvious, yet potentially the most lethal tactic: germ warfare. Domestic Manager hadn't even left the house before the smaller, blonder one started running a temperature and complaining of a headache. The demoralising effect of this on the adult population can't be overstated. Domestic Manager leaves, feeling like a bad mother, abandoning her brood. (Which she kind of was) Hapless father is enveloped in a darkening cloud of impending doom. Only Monday and uncertainty and doubt are already setting in. Of course, small blonde recovers completely for Nana to deliver her to school. When Dad picks her up though, complete relapse. Headache. Stomach ache. Then ultimately, inevitably... spew.

Now here's where my children (or "the insurgents" as I've come to know them) really stepped up the hostilities. To capitalise on the impact of their virulent opening germ-based salvo, they proceeded to bombard me with the more conventional, but no less deadly, SCHOOL COMMITMENTS. Oh, and I'm not talking, "commitment" singular... Oh no, no, no. We're dealing with two concerts (both at night), an all-day band festival and something called a "student led conference".

While my attendance is not required at the band festival, I am faced with the logistics of a 7:15AM drop-off and an 8:30PM pickup. However, the 2 concerts were "must see". It gets better. One of the concerts featured a combined choir of FIVE-HUNDRED primary school kids and Suzanne Prentice. And it was on a Monday night. And the interval lasted over 40 minutes (longer than either of the halves). Best of all, it featured the aforementioned upchucking blonde.

Miraculously, or suspiciously, depending on how you look at it, once again a recovery was made in the nick of time for the performance. Sick again next day, of course. Far to ill to go to school... even on the day of the Student Led Conference. Student Led Conferences are the evolution of what used to be parent-teacher interviews. Disturbingly, as the name implies, the teacher is no longer really required. The parent still is though, you better believe it. The parent is led by the student for FORTY-FIVE MINUTES (yes, about the length of an interval at a Kids for Kids concert).

So this is where the insurgents shot themselves in the foot.

By being too sick to go to school, there is now no student to lead the conference. What a bugger, eh? Here's where the fight-back begins in earnest. I'm adding an actual doctor's appointment to the equation now, see how you like that, Blondey!

Am I a bad dad? Do I sound somewhat callous and flippant when discussing the health and well-being of my progeny? Is my attitude toward parenting a little too adversarial? Perhaps. But then, perhaps they should have thought of that before they started it.

It's not just me, right? 40 minutes is WAY too long for an interval