We all have those mornings where things just do not go “just right.” What can I say, they happen to the best of us, especially on Sunday mornings. This morning was one of those mornings. Ben was sick with the sinus junk that was going around and while he was going to try and pull himself together to make it to third hour to teach his primary class, he was not moving very fast at all. In fact, still in bed. I have to say that I was tired too. The boys were not moving very quickly either. It was just one of those mornings. Fortunately, the boys were up and moving albeit slower than normal.
I am not sure what went wrong this morning, but something did. I am not sure why I did not even pay the children any more attention than I normally do. I suppose I give them a little once over and make sure they have themselves “put together” before we walk out the door, but this morning we were running late and I just went on the assumption that they had everything. Out the door we went.
It did not take long for Lance to realize that he was missing something. As we are walking into the chapel and I sit down on the pew, Lance declares, “My tie!” Now this is not unusual, but I look over to see what is wrong with him and he finishes his declaration, “I forgot my tie.” Fantastic! A child without a tie! We managed to get out of the house without a tie this morning. He said he was ready and I took him at his word. I guess I should have made a better effort to give him the once over this morning, but we were rushing out the door.
Upon checking the clock, it was too late to run back home and grab him a tie. I explained that he was just going to have to go without it today. For some reason, this really seemed to bother him. I am not entirely sure why, but it bothered him. Perhaps he felt naked without it? Perhaps he felt that his friends would make fun of him for not having a tie on? Perhaps he gets picked on when he wears a tie versus a bow tie and so not having one on at all will really up the ante a little bit? I do not know but it really bothered him to not have a tie on. Frankly, there was nothing that I was going to do about it at that moment in time, he was just going to have to suck it up and deal with it. This was his problem for sitting in front of the computer while getting ready instead of focusing on getting dressed for church. There are consequences for our actions as he was finding out first hand at this moment.
Alas, his mother did take pity on him…improvisation at its finest…
Mom introduced the “tie of shame” so to speak for Lance. Who knew that the Sunday Bulletin would serve to be so useful? Many thanks to the smartphone I carry, the miracles of the internet and a quick web search yielded instructions on how to fold an origami tie. Perfect! The problem was figuring out how to get it to stay around his neck. A little fiddling and it was not a problem to finagle a strap to go around his neck under his collar just like a real necktie.
At first he thought it was not so funny as it stuck out just like Dilbert’s tie, but after a few adjustments I managed to get it to lie down. Then he thought it was pretty cool or at the very least acceptable. At least it kept him from worrying about the fact that he did not have a tie on at all.
Who would have thought that a tie would make an eight year old boy so uncomfortable. I am not talking physically uncomfortable – he wears bow ties mostly – but emotionally uncomfortable because he did not have it on? I never would have thought. I would have thought he would be ecstatic because for one day he would be tie free. Not this child.
I love Lance. He's just awesome. Hooray for the internet being a 'saving grace' for you.