A ballet tale

Without sounding like a complete drama queen, I had myself a little meltdown yesterday.

It went like this:

The girls started ballet at the beginning of the term and we wanted to give them a chance to settle in and decide if it was really their “thing” before we forked out the R510 x 2 for their ballet outfits. Yes people, that would be R1 020. For ballet outfits.  For 2 x 4yo girls.

You see, it is one of the joys of having twins: everything costs double.  Besides, when I was their age I briefly did ballet until the teacher told us to lie on our tummies and touch the backs of our heads with our toes.  That kind of flexibility does not run in our family, so I wanted to avoid this expensive indulgence, for lack of a better word.

By last week it was clear that we really needed to get cracking on those ballet outfits after not having received our list of required items as promised or being able to get to the ballet shop (The Ballet Box) to buy said, prescribed items for our little ballerinas.  It’s been mad the last few weeks.

So, on Friday I call The Ballet Box and ask whether they will be open on Sunday as Saturday was going to be impossible due to the lovely Sally’s wedding on Saturday morning and squeezing in the girls’ fun walk and a way overdue hair appointment for me.  Yes, they are open on Sunday.

On Saturday I call them again to check, yes yes, they are open from 10h00 until 14h00 on Sunday.  Are you sure I say, I need to buy ballet outfits for my girls, yes, no problem.

Off we went to our wedding and we had a relaxed morning yesterday and popped around to a friend for tea before we went to do our big shop, my girls and I.  We were all very excited, me because I could give Etienne’s credit card a last little stab before payday and the girls because, well, they are girls and they are spending time with their Mom and it’s BALLET CLOTHES.

After tea we drove down to the shop and guess what? Closed. At 12h15.

I sat in that parking lot looking at that closed door and I felt utterly defeated. So did the girls.  They didn’t whine or cry, they were utterly gutted and confused, because why did their Mom lie to them? I can handle a lot, but making a promise to my kids and not delivering does my head in, especially if it wasn’t my fuckup.

I then went through all the stages of grief, most of them right there in that parking lot.

Denial:  I got out the car and tried the locked doors and called the shop, no answer.

Anger: I then left a carefully worded FU message on their voicemail so as not to teach my children any more bad words than they already know.  (If you are reading this and you are from the Ballet box, I’m the Tania that left that grief stricken, passive aggressive message.  You’re welcome)

Bargaining: Girls, Mommy will make a plan.  I had visions of having to take half-day today so that I could drive to the Southern Suburbs if need be to procure ballet outfits because hell was going to freeze over before I gave The Ballet Box a single cent of our money.

Depression: If only I were a better Mother/didn’t work full-day/was more organized. At this point I had pulled out of the deserted parking lot and was driving home, the girls very upset in the back of the car that we were going home now and not buy their ballet clothes.

At which point I started crying. I cried all the way home and eventually went to hide in our room so as not to upset the kids, getting angrier with myself by the minute and to the complete bewilderment of Etienne.

Acceptance: I eventually pulled myself toward myself and decided to go and check out the sports shops to see if I could find at least some of what I needed.

Enter Mr Price Sports Store, after a false start at Sportsman’s Warehouse, where I found everything I needed.  At half the price. And the service was amazing.

So, to the purveyors of The Ballet Box: get stuffed.