The Graduate (Part 1)

I still think the idea of “graduating” a 5-year-old from preschool kind of diminishes the whole idea of accomplishment that used to accompany graduation. When I was a kid, getting to graduation was hard work, and accolades were not handed out as we transitioned from each grade to the next. Ass-whuppings, yes, if we failed to make said transition. But award ceremonies were reserved for bigger occasions.

As I was grousing about this a few days before the big event, to the very nice fellow who works the desk at The Boy’s preschool, he pointed out that a lot of these kids—unlike ours—had been going to school together now for three or four years. For some of them, this was saying goodbye to friends they’d known since they were in diapers together.

I hate it when the other guy’s point is better than mine. What could I do? I acquiesced; let the fake-graduation ceremony take place as scheduled.

Then on the day of, today, it was bloody murder getting there. I figured I’d leave ahead of time and arrive maybe a half hour early to get some shots of the kids during the run-up to the deal. I started packing up to leave an hour beforehand, figuring in a 15-minute drive. Best not to leave anything to chance. After all, The Boy only graduates from preschool once! At 50 minutes before the ceremony, I discovered our little video camera—which it was my job to bring and deploy—was broken. Fuck! No problem, though. I was just in Costco a couple days ago, and they had crates of Flip Videos priced for quick sale. (Apparently it’s fast on its way to becoming a dead technology.)

So I raced to Costco, conveniently right down the street from us. The Flip Videos had been picked over and the remainder had been moved to a much lower-profile display location, in just two days! I grabbed one and found a mercifully short checkout line. I fast-walked out to the car because it was—as usual—cold and windy as hell outside. I got in and began wrestling with the industrial strength plastic shell they seal small, highly-stealable tech items in. This is probably the point in the day when I sliced open my finger, although I did not notice it at the time.

I finally got the plastic shredded and the box open, only to discover that that model doesn’t run on a pair of AA batteries (with which I had come well equipped) like the older versions, it runs on 3 AAA batteries, or ideally a rechargeable battery pack, included. Unfortunately, it was by then a half hour until graduation and I had no time at all to charge up a battery pack, so I decided to run into Rite Aid on the way and buy some AAA batteries.

I got there and dashed into the store, tore open a 10-pack of AAA batteries at the photo kiosk and shoved three of them into my new gizmo while the clerk gawped at me. Hallelujah, they worked! The camera bipped to life. I went to the counter to pay for the batteries, but the counter person and customer ahead of me were both exceptionally chatty, so I decided to head back to the pharmacy. They almost never have a line at this branch and I had an RX to pick up anyhow. As I stepped up to the window, the ancient pharm-tech waved me back and turned around to deal with a drive-through prescription customer. I died a little more inside, but fortunately the drive-through customer couldn’t roll their car window down, so the transaction was necessarily cancelled.

The pharm-tech turned back to me. I cited my name and she looked over the long line of “B” prescriptions, and began to carefully inspect each plastic bag’s I.D. sticker. Honestly, it was like watching Tim Conway’s old man character from The Carol Burnett Show. Not locating the bag with my name, the old lady mused, “Well, let’s go look you up,” and shuffled slowly over to her computer screen. She stared suspiciously at for a moment it then carefully raised her glasses up to her nose. After a minute of slow-motion key-stroking, she smiled at me and drawled, “Well, you’re in here all rightee. Just gotta find you,” and shuffled back to the long line of “B” prescriptions.

[edit, edit, edit…]

I finally made it to the preschool with about 5 minutes to spare. I fast-walked some more, this time to The Boy’s classroom. I barged in the door and everybody turned and looked at me like I’ve got rocks in my head. (And I’m thinking, “Shit, where are all the other parents? Is this thing gonna go off on time?”) The nice teacher jumped up and led me by the arm out the door and pointed to the room down the hall wherein all the other parents had long since assembled. I stumbled in, all eyes turned to me, and I was relieved to see The Missus beckon from the front row.

In no time at all after my arrival, the kids came streaming in. I had my frantically-purchased new Flip Video, dead-technology camera out, and I was shooting my usual background stuff. You know, B-roll. The teachers had prepared a video montage of the year’s highlights, then certificates would be awarded, cupcakes would be served, the end. I decided it would be fun shooting the teachers trying to keep the kids quiet during the video presentation.

Fourteen minutes in, my new camera informed me my brand-new batteries were down to about 10%.

In 14 minutes.

I turned it off and ended up shooting the certificate handing-out with my little digital still-camera’s video setting:

Eight seconds later, the big moment had come and gone.

In the end, it was delightful and charming as only events where well-meaning adults try to get a crowd of five- and six-year-olds to do their bidding in an orderly fashion can be.

We got lots of pictures. His teachers:

Some friends:

I still don’t know whether or not it’s a good thing, a graduation for every year of their life. I remain unconvinced. Happily for everyone involved, I don’t have to approve, I just have to show up on time and have the camera situation together, and I damn near dropped the ball on both today.

Ah well. There’s always next year’s graduation ceremony.