Theater of the absurd

So Samson's school has a new director. She started in the early spring and has already made a huge impact. We get weekly letters home; the school has instituted mandatory parent-teacher conferences, and they've introduced a science curriculum for the "older" kids [next year, Samson, next year].

She's painted the hallways and hung murals and really made some welcome changes. And her son is in Sam's class, which is great because she's got even more of a vested interest in what goes on with the "young 2's."

Unfortunately, we've gotten a Clintonian two-fer with her ascension to the director's office. Her husband has sort of adopted the school as his own. Which would be fine except he's a total doofus. I mean that in the strictest, most clinical sense of the word.

He's also, apparently, ubiquitous. I don't know if he sleeps there or what, but we are, at least in theory, on the same drop-off schedule three days a week.

Which means I get lots of time for grinning inanity as I'm trying simultaneously to give Samson his last-minute school day pep talk and get his gear into his cubby and his lunch and snacks squared away.

I should note here, if you haven't already guessed, that I'm kind of a curmudgeon. I have an extremely low tolerance for people who aren't funny but feel the need to make jokes, and I have an even lower tolerance for people who feel compelled to fill any moment of silence by talking.

Obviously, there's a certain amount of small talk that is necessary to grease society's wheels. I'm sure I probably ask people how they're doing dozens of times a day.

But the kinds of conversations you have as you pass by someone in the hall or wait for your stop on the bus or your floor on the elevator are (I always thought) universally understood to be about one exchange long. Two at the most.

So the question "How're you doin'?" is not an invitation for the recipient to hold forth on his lower back pain but simply an acknowledgement that, well, you've got to say something, so this might as well be it.

I wish there was some kind of national public service campaign to let people know it's OK to have nothing to say. In fact, being quiet (particularly for adults) is really kind of underrated as far as I'm concerned. Maybe Nancy Reagan could be brought out of retirement to shoot a whole new set of commercials for the "Just say nothing" campaign. She'd probably be totally on board after last week at her husband's library.

Likewise, as far as being funny, a little self-knowledge goes a long way. So when my two-and-half-year-old walks into class with his hat and glasses on, it would be funny to make a witness protection program joke. Sliding downward, it might even be funny just to make a joke about being in disguise. But it's not funny to say: "Hey: Look at you, STUD!" and then wait a beat for me to erupt in gales of hysteria.

I mean, come on, even Pauly Shore's writers would have left that line on the cutting-room floor.

As always, Samson had the appropriate response --- a long soulful/puzzled look followed by a Beckett-like observation about ants in his cubby.