A graduation cap.

I did not graduate from pre school. Yes, you read that correctly, I did not graduate from creche. I do not have any cute nursery school graduation pictures, with lopsided oversized gowns and a pretty silk frock underneath, surrounded by other tiny toddlers, photobombing your memories. Those were the days were the camera man’s visits were special and you couldn’t retake a picture, you just had to absorb the chaos and pray your eyes weren’t droopy when the Kodak moment ensued.

Can we all agree though, that preschool is a bit of a scam if you really think about it. Fine maybe scam is a stretch, its financial wizardry from the owners of kindergartens. I think it’s the stage when parents find out that their fuzzy little bundle of joy is REALLY expensive. I mean have you seen the list of requirements from the play centres and nursery schools? Long, winding lists that include 4 litres of Mazoe Orange Crush, washing powder, 10 kgs of mealie meal, tissues. I mean it’s a veritable tuck-shop stock list. Which toddler do you know, finishes 4 litres of juice in one month? I’m a whole adult and I don’t even drink that much juice. This is after taking into consideration the fact that they finish school at one pm. I do not know who thought of this, but I am convinced preschools are age old pyramid schemes.

What makes it even worse, is the fact that they go there to sleep, literally, to sleep, they have scheduled naps within the 5 hours in which the school acts as wards of your most precious cargo. I remember my younger brother tearfully relaying stories about being given a knock on the head for not sleeping during nap time. I mean sure they draw little sketches and paint but the sheer amount of fees paid for that, blows my mind. Which brings us back to why I do not have a kindergarten graduation cap.

It started well enough, my earliest memory of Chakari preschool, of a long cabin, sturdy and brown, temporarily designed to house the local pre school because the brick and mortar one had burnt down years before in a freak fire. We would sit, in neat little rows, on benches connected to the tables and draw sketches of whatever we had been asked to. Now on that fateful day we had been asked to draw modes of transport, and I had settled on a bus. I remember furrowing my brow in concentration, furling and unfurling my tongue as I was wont to do as a child. I was meticulous in my drawing of the carrier on top of the bus and the mini steel ladder that led up to it. Now, in the recesses of my mind, I KNEW I had to use the bathroom. I could feel it building up, I don’t know why I thought it would be a good idea to hold it off until I finished drawing, but alas hindsight is twenty twenty.

When you were done drawing, it was customary, to queue up to the teacher’s desk, and show her what you had drawn, explain your rationale etc., you know the drill. Now I must hasten to say, the consequence of the wooden log cabin use was the operational ablutions were only found at the old burnt down building, as they had managed to escape the ravages of the fire. My recollections confine me to me doing the dance of mercy with my bladder as I stood in the queue, the moment I reached my teacher I only could squeal, “it’s a bus, miss please may I go to the toilet,” just as I clutched the apex of my thighs, and the flood gave way. I managed to hobble and trip, stand up, dash and sprint the distance that seemed like kilometers in between the 2 buildings. Much to the merriment and utter amusement of the entire classroom and my teacher, who came out of the building to witness my embarrassment in all its glory, as I reached the bathroom, which to be perfectly honest I didn’t even need at that point! My clothes had taken care of business and happily lapped up and soaked everything. Sigh, oh lord of dry under pants why hast thou forsaken me?

It’s like I can still hear their laughter, I mean it wasn’t necessarily mean I think, it must just have been a comical scene. I was a chubby, rotund kid, with fleshy arms and a jutting tummy, my mother liked dressing me in “palazzo” shorts, not sure if these are still a thing, and I must have made quite the sight with liquid streaming down my thighs and an already visibly wet crotch, trying to convince my poor hand that pushing my flesh in would stop the waterworks, whilst trying to be Usain Bolt at the same time! Oh come on, you know how we laugh at videos of comical tragedy like that, the current crate challenge is a classic example! I’m sure had I not been in my own wet shoes? I would have been laughing with them!

The lead up to the next sequence of events were probably the consequence of what I saw when I went into the lavatory, it birthed the "brilliant" idea. All I remember is that there was a particular “fellow” I found already quite comfortably nestled above the water line, if you know what I mean. Try as I might, I could not flush him away. I remember giving up at the fourth flush and proceeding to do my business, nonetheless. That’s when the idea was born, I got home that day, after an afternoon of being the source of many jokes, to tell my father the news, I had not learnt that day. The teacher had foisted upon me, a crime I had not committed, accusing me of being the “owner” of the fellow that refused to bid the world goodbye and retire to the recesses of the sewer system.

I remember putting on a stellar performance, a startling amount of tears, no doubt in memory of the afternoon’s humiliation, leaning into my father, my chest wracked with sobs, adamant that they were lying and I hadn’t done anything of the sort. Of course, it was all a big lie, the teacher had done nothing of the sort, but then he didn’t know that! His daughter was in pain, and the teacher faced the full wrath of my fathers anger the next morning, where I imagine her pleas of innocence fell on deaf ears, I was promptly withdrawn from the school.

Now I, on the other hand was elated, I didn’t have to go to school, and this is secretly every child’s dream!! Said happiness lasted for all of two days, and to my credit I DID tell my father that I had been lying, albeit after two days. I think he had had choice words for my teacher, because he flat out told me that I could not go back. And that is the story of how I was homeschooled before it was fashionable and how to this day, I am a pre school drop out and no, its not as fancy as an MIT drop out, highly do NOT recommend!