Whenever I take a day off from work, I write an Out of Office (OOTO) message. Most people write fairly boring OOTOs, along the lines of:
I’m away from the office today. If you have an urgent needs, please send them to The Identified Person Who Has Some Work Relationship, and the will help you. I’ll be back At Some Designated Point In The Future.
Trés snore.
At some point in the few years, I decided that since it was possible to send a different message to internal people, my OOTOs were going to have a wildly different approach. (External people still get the snore version, but that’s more for necessity.)
I haven’t gone as far as incurring an HR violation (or drawn the interest and/or ire of any law enforcement), though I’m sure there’s more than a few who’ve questioned my sanity. And yet, I get a lot of interest, if not outright complements for them. I’ll take that as a win.
Yesterday was Monkey’s high school graduation ceremony. She still has a month to go of school, so she’s not entirely out of the woods yet, but it’s still a pretty big achievement. It’s one of those huge milestones, right up there with First Steps and First Words. It’s not to be taken lightly.
So, of course, I provided this as my OOTO:
It was only yesterday that I felt a tug at my pant leg. It was my daughter, maybe two or three. “Agua.” She knew mostly Spanish at that point. I got out her favourite plastic cup, featuring a somewhat worn image of WALL-E, one of her favourite movies. “Gah-cee” was the closest she could get to “Thank you” at that point, and toddled off.
This morning, it was a tap on my shoulder. “How do I look?” I looked her in the eyes blankly for a moment, missing the intent. My mouth formed an incoherent “huh?” as I struggled to get enough coffee in me for my addled brain to form conscious thought. “How do I look for my graduation?”
There’s a scene in The Princess Bride where our hero, Westley, is hooked up to a machine designed to extract life from its subjects, and the evil Prince Humperdinck [giggle] slams it on to full power in a fit of rage, causing Westley’s cry to heard across the land as his soul is torn away. I’m sure the sudden loss of 15 years is similarly recognizable.
“You okay, Dad?”
“Yeah,” I swallowed through a forced smile, the scream echoing within. “Yeah, I’m okay. You look amazing.” Not a platitude, she was resplendent in her robes, the traditional black with an orange chevron at the neck. She twirled her cap in her hand. Like all the others in her class, it was “rented”, owned by the school, borrowed for a fee. But for a few hours, it was hers.
“Thanks.” She was nervous. A parent knows.
“Hey, you’ll be fine. Focus on your Principal, your teachers, not the people in the audience. You’ve been on stage before, this is no different.”
“Well…”
“What?”
“Should I do a cartwheel?”
This, of course, was an entirely imagined thought, pulled out in only a few minutes’ time, slammed into an editor and saved into my Outlook Autoreply field.
I came home yesterday and found out that my daughter, like a few others in her graduating class, were customizing their outfits. They all had the same robes (dark blue, for the record; the chevron was gold and white), which made standing out in a crowd of 555 a bit difficult. She had printed out some flames and a black and white picture of Guy Fieri (her friends have called her that, causing to her to correct them that it should be Gal Fieri).
This morning was a rush. She needed to be at the BMO Centre at the Stampede Grounds for 8am; we needed to be there around the same time, so we learned. It was up and at ’em, dressed, and out the door. Grandpa and Granny took Monkey down ahead of us, while Alex, Choo Choo, and I went down to pick up Grandma; Nana had the good sense to know that a two hour ceremony on hard seats wasn’t going to end well, so opted not to go.
(I don’t blame her. She had endured two graduations with Cathy and I, neither of which were comfortable. I don’t even remember my graduation – it was in the fall, after I’d already gone to university, so it wasn’t as meaningful. I vaguely remember sitting in the audience. I don’t even know if I wore a suit of any kind. There were no robes, no mortarboard. I have no memory of the events before or after, either.)
Because Grandma (with poor eyesight) and Grandpa (who feigned needing a cane perhaps a bit much), we were able to acquire Accessibility seating towards the front, right behind the graduands, who regularly walked before us as they arrived and departed.
Five hundred and fifty-five grads, in three groups, filed up to the stage, got their pictures taken, got their “diploma” (a placeholder until the Province issues real ones upon their completion of high school), then walked up to shake hands with the Principal, a pair of representatives from the CBE and the Province, then return to their seats.
The ceremony was emceed by one of the students, who read from no script, ran it off the cuff, and did a pretty good job of it. The Land Acknowledgement, read by another student, sounded like it had been produced by ChatGPT. The guest speaker, an accomplished author, was good but felt a bit trite, almost like she was trying to do her own version of Wear Sunscreen.
The knockout was the Valedictorian. I don’t hear politicians that practiced who can give speeches that good. She should run for Premier. I’d vote for her.
Choo Choo took notes as the students went up. One of the vice principals ensured she got the correct pronunciation of every student, which she announced before they crossed the stage. It was a student about every 2-4 seconds. It still took two hours, with three breaks between the student groups by the school band, playing an all-John Williams serenade.
I had my camera on my monopod. It was dim, I had a telephoto lens, and I didn’t want to force the camera to compensate for a shaky hand. When we got to the Ses, I was keeping a keen eye on Monkey. Slowly, she followed her classmates up the ramp. I took place and waited, finger on the ready. She was resplendent in her gown, her hat topped perfectly, golden hair pouring out and over her shoulders. I started shooting as she spoke her name to the announcer, I could just make out her voice.
I swear upon anything that you’ll take as assurance that I’m not pulling your leg, that the following is 100% true. And yes, I have photographic evidence.
As Monkey passed in behind the announcer, she whipped down the zipper of her gown, exposing a horrifically gorgeous button-up shirt, emblazoned with flames, and donned a set of wrap-around sunglasses. She didn’t just walk across the stage, she strutted, hand out to shake the Principal’s. I couldn’t see his face, but from the angle I was on, it was clear he was laughing. She continued right on, receiving platitudes from the others as she headed back to her seat.
Monkey was the only one to show off. I’m vastly proud that she’s graduating. And if my pride at her success was the cake, her crossing the stage was the sweetest icing. In all of my imagination, I don’t think I could have written that.
That’ll do, Monkey. That’ll do.
