The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 2688 by Angharad Copyright© 2015 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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224 doz for dodeca wotsits.

I lay there thinking about what had happened the night before. Had I really felt worthless? I suppose I must have done or I wouldn’t have said it to Simon. I know lots of depressed people feel that way and loads of teenagers have very low self esteem—but I’m not a teenager, nor am I depressed. How can I have low self esteem, I’m one of the youngest acting professors in the country? In terms of my career, I’m a high flier, with suggestions that when the time is right, I could be in line to take over one of the most highly regarded university chairs in my particular field and my alma mater. So what is going on?

At least I didn’t lapse into not being a proper woman stuff, but only because Simon as good as warned me not to. Is that where all this insecurity stuff comes from or even more fundamental and from my upbringing as a very controlled child who rebelled, which was fine as long as I was rebelling—not revolting—but now I’m a representative of the forces of repression—according to Trish—how can I be rebelling?

No wonder I get confused, if this gets any more convoluted I really will know what the inside of my colon looks like—actually, I know what they look like, I’ve even done sections through the villi for microscope slides, and also of diverticuli which are the pocket like projections in the gut that get inflamed and produce diverticulitis, which I believe is very painful.

I came to no conclusion—not unusual—and even when I do, a few days later I rethink the problem and come to a different one. Maybe Verdi was correct, la donna `e mobile and we are indeed fickle. In the bathroom I checked my hair in the mirror—it needed washing so I hopped into the shower.

I suddenly realised that it was the end of term in a day or so and the girls hadn’t asked me for food for the end of term parties—more than that, what was I going to do with them for the next six or seven weeks? I wonder if Monkey World would adopt them. While I debated these and other items of global importance, I roused the offspring and while they were getting themselves ready, began breakfast.

We were in the middle of it when David arrived and began making up bags of food. When I asked him what he was doing he told me that Trish had asked him to do it as I was so busy, I’d probably forget. She was right, but I feel a little resentful that I’ve been usurped by my own daughter. No wonder I have anxieties about being inadequate, they run rings around me. I fed the cat instead, she doesn’t make value statements and seems grateful for whatever we do for her—no hang on—that’s the dog, the cat has issued a series of conditions about how she likes her food presented and where and when we can feed her, forms of address and so on.

She jumped up as I was putting her dish down and knocked it down on the floor where the canine vacuum cleaner got it. I shouted at her and she ran off knocking Cate down in the process. I then had to calm her down before trying to feed the cat again. Somehow we got to school and work on time—I think Trish might have suspended it or run it backwards, because I couldn’t believe we managed to fit everything in in the minutes available and the girls were worried they’d have a late mark against them on the last day of term. That would have been an injustice, but as things worked out, it didn’t happen.

Delia made me a cuppa as soon as I arrived and for a moment I wondered if I’d done the right thing in getting her a place to do a degree—then I stopped thinking selfishly and realised, it was the right thing to do and would enable her to grow in all sorts of ways, including intellectually. It was possibly the greatest gift I could offer her. I know she was chuffed about it. But it meant in three months I’d be without a secretary, assuming I hadn’t jumped ship myself. When I saw the pile of correspondence, the urge was nearly overpowering.

She gave me a few minutes to gather my wits and I really did wonder if I was cut out to be a professor, because if I was, why did I find it so bloody hard? When I posited this to Daddy at lunch time, his response was, “It’s no an easy job, sae if ye’re findin’ it herred goin’, ye’re probably daein’ it right.” Hardly a vote of confidence but certainly not a disincentive.

I tried to tell him that I wasn’t sure how much longer I wished to do it, he reminded me that I had agreed to do it as long as he was acting as Dean of the faculty. I was outmanoeuvred again. I pointed out that I’d be losing my secretary and he told me that was my own fault for opening her eyes and her mind at the same time.

“But you did it to me,” I protested.

“Aye, but that’s different, ye’re family.”

“I thought as an educator, it was incumbent upon me to help develop anyone within my sphere of influence.”

“Nah, ye’re confusin’ yersel’ wi’ a photo laboratory, as the manager o’ a department, it’s yer duty tae mak’ sure ye stay in budget or mak’ a wee profit.”

“But we made nearly a hundred thousand last year.”

“Aye, why d’ye think we let ye keep thae chair this year?”

“So I had something upon which to sit?” I threw back at him.

“Aye, that as weel.”

I give up, or until I can argue with Simon, he usually lets me win—see, and you thought it was all feminine wiles on my part—it is but don’t tell Si, he hasn’t twigged yet.

On bringing the topic back to my lack of secretarial assistance after September, he shrugged and said Pippa had found Delia, he was sure she could find me another, but not through an agency this time. At the fees they charge, I could understand his concern.