I would love to pull something pithy out from between my buttocks right now but there are three children in my face talking about Pokemon. It is Spring Break. Spring Break means nothing. The children are going to daycare every day but two; one they will spend with their grandparents and one they will spend with me. They were crushed when I told them Spring Break actually meant nothing. And they’ve never even seen a Spring Break! movie.

The children are not in my face because they need my attention, never fear, I am not neglecting them. We are waiting for pizza to arrive and they just ate goldfish crackers and peanut butter and lollipops and everything is very exciting. The neighbour, who waits for us to come home every day, is excited too. He is talking at breakneck speed.

I have a co-worker who is a lot like a hummingbird. She is rail thin and very short and she walks so fast I run to keep up. She also is allergic to things and the other day she had an allergic reaction so today she was all doped up on super fly drugs. It was weird listening to her talk, like listening to a record album slowed down to 33 rpm. I guess if I started doing uppers it would be like me on 78.

The kids at work, and they are all kids except for three of us, were comparing birth years today. The ones born in the 80s were making fun of the ones born in the 90s. I just kept my grey head down and thought about typewriter ribbons and boozy Christmas parties aka the past. The temptation is to join in and pretend to be current but I take more pleasure, sometimes, from being invisible and listening in on the juicy gossip.

You can do this with little kids, like actual children, too. Just sit quietly in their midst, as though on safari. They are used to being ignored or managed; if you’re not managing them you must be ignoring them, and then they’ll go on about all kinds of things. Opinions about the houses of pop singers. What Joey did on the playground and who saw him do it. Who has a crush on whom. Who knows how to divide with decimals.

Sometimes the things are dead boring. Like Pokemon. So now I must go to another room.