Essay

Starting school on the right foot

By Kit Pancoast Nagamura

My son switched schools this September. Knowing the adjustment to a whole new academic system takes time for both child and parents, the school counselor set up a meeting with us to review class choices, help us learn about school policies and procedures, and to get to know us. The meeting was a killer.

Of course, a certain amount of tension is built into such initial encounters. As a parent, I was naturally hoping to make a good impression. My son, however, is at the age where walking with your parents on campus is less cool than wearing underwear on your head. Finally, it was a whopping 37 degrees outside. Though ordinarily I would have chosen closed shoes, I wore sandals to the meeting. This last detail held consequences.

Ten minutes into the meeting, things were proceeding nicely. My son was articulate. The counselor was open and friendly, plus, I was happy to note, she too was wearing sandals. I relaxed. But then, I felt something. A teeny tickling on my big toe. I flicked my toe, and tried to focus on the meeting. It tickled again. I looked down, then shrieked, kicked up my leg, and sent my sandal flying into the air. "A cockroach was on my foot," I explained, now perched on my chair. The counselor peered at me as though I were suffering hallucinations, and my son shook his head, mortified. They both checked the room, but could find no trace of the insect. "I've never seen a cockroach in these offices," said the counselor. "Yeah," my son said, nodding in agreement, and shooting me a warning glance.

We continued the conference. I pretended to compose myself, but I kept my sandaled feet hovering about an inch off the floor and was barely able to concentrate. I am (perhaps unreasonably) terrified of cockroaches, and even if the counselor and my son thought otherwise, I couldn't shake a creepy feeling that the roach was there, somewhere.

Suddenly the counselor catapulted out of her chair, screaming, "Oh, oh, oh, it got me! It just ran half up my leg!" She and I fled to the office door, ready to abandon my son in the room with the insect. Seizing the opportunity, and thanks to long training as our household exterminator, my son heroically got down on his hands and knees to locate the bug. It promptly charged him, causing him to scramble backwards, and gasp. "It's a feisty one, not afraid of anything," he said.

I briefly thought of Franz Kafka's Metamorphosis, in which hapless protagonist Gregor Samsa wakes up to find himself transformed into a bug, detested and misunderstood by all. But the counselor and I could not spend all day on the threshold of her office, and literature, I reminded myself, has limited application in the real world. "Just get it," I urged my son, and with a rolled up class roster, he did. It was not the ideal scenario, I suppose, but I think my son made a solid impression, at least on the cockroach.

Shukan ST: September 24, 2010

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