An item was left behind at our neighbourhood candle/cocktail /zombie party last weekend. It wasn’t a hair weave, pair of Spanx or “unwelcome” pharmaceutical. It was a pair of children’s slippers belonging to the little brother of a classmate of our five year olds.  

I’ll admit the clean-up didn’t happen that night but a little later the next day and the slippers almost got swallowed up by a vacuum hose I had shoved under the basement couch. Thankfully, it began choking up Smartfood and salt & vinegar chips and when I pulled it out to examine the salty obstruction, there they were.

I thought returning the Thomas The Tank slippers would be as simple as sending them in my daughter’s Mr. Zippy, a canvas bag housing her kindergarten essentials  (Powerpoint For Dummies, Justin Bieber bobble head) and handing them to her friend their first day back. I was wrong.

Ellie enters after school.

Me: Ellie did you return the slippers to your friend?

Ellie looking at me as if a ridiculous request had been asked of her: No Mom. I couldn’t.

Me (cool, calm): Was Katie not at school today? (The only possible reason she “couldn’t” return the slippers)

Ellie: No, she was there.

Me: Oh. Why didn’t you return the slippers? Did you forget? (also acceptable)

Ellie: Can I have a snack?

Me: Why didn’t you return the slippers El?

Ellie: Because there wasn’t time.

Me: So between the hours of 8:30am and 3pm you didn’t have a moment to spare?

This course curriculum is more demanding than any of us had imagined. No time to return slippers, what next, no Lord’s Prayer?

Ellie: When we come into the school, we put our coats and boots in our cubbies and then we go right to the carpet for circle time.

Me: So there wasn’t enough time to quickly toss the slippers to Katie as you sprinted to the carpet?

Ellie: No. And our cubbies are too far away.

Me: So it was a logistical issue? Is her cubby in the next town?

Ellie: Yeah. And it’s embarrassing.

Me: Embarrassing for you? For Katie? For Thomas The Tank Engine?

Ellie: They’re not even hers.

Me: No, they’re her little brothers and he needs them for preschool.

Ellie: Katie said he doesn’t want them anymore.

Me: So you and Katie had time to discuss the slippers and you two concluded they are no longer of interest to Katie’s brother?

Ellie: The other kids would wonder what we were doing.

Me: If you handed her a bag with her brother’s slippers they would need an explanation? Would they be unhappy with the story, they were left at my house and now I’m returning them?

Ellie: Well, they might want them or they might want to know more about why I have them.

Me: And there’s no time for discussion with that Ellie shaped space on the carpet?

After a long list of excuses, a cubby distance calculation, the promise of a written explanation if the teacher, students, hall monitors or janitorial staff grilled Ellie in any way over the Thomas the Tank affair, we agreed the only solution was to return the slippers to Katie the next day back at school.

Big Sister: That’s stupider than horseradish in May.

I have to agree.