My Son, The Ass

In the Christmas pageant, he is a donkey. This is funny, of course, for a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is, until I'm standing here watching, I had no idea he even had a part. He sits, looking fidgety, among the other children, sometimes smiling awkwardly, sometimes picking his nose. His best friend, V, also looking fidgety, is mottled with hives and frantically stroking her hair. There is no music and the lights are bright. There's a cradle on the floor, overflowing with hay.

Finally, the teacher gets the play rolling by calling on the kid who plays Gabriel. And the kid who plays Gabriel--resplendent in white, her patent leather shoes clicking--relishes in her role of announcing Mary's knock-upedness by sticking a little felt trumpet to a big felt nativity scene. Then the kid who plays Mary, resigned, quietly, to her task of carrying a little felt virgin to the big felt nativity scene, realizes that the virgin is missing, and everything, for a second, goes a tiny bit crazy. There's a panicked search for the little felt virgin, but the search, to everyone's horror, turns up nothing. But--you know--the show must go on. So then it's the Joseph-kid's turn. Sensing the panic, he calmly conveys his little felt Joseph to the big felt nativity scene, and peace on earth, for a second, is restored. Which brings us to the donkey. The Boy's role, as you might have predicted, is to mosey a little felt donkey to a big felt nativity scene, and as we can see plainly that the donkey's not missing, we get the camera ready, awaiting our baby's big moment in the sun. Except that--what the hell--the donkey's not budging. True to his part, The Boy just sits there, arms crossed, glaring at the teacher, as she tries repeatedly to get him to move his ass. "Come on, Sweetheart," she whispers anxiously, "I'll walk with you if you want." But nope. He doesn't want. In fact, he doesn't want so much that he takes the little felt donkey and throws it on the floor. Which, not surprisingly, gets big laughs from the audience, and it's then that I see the smirk, the smug recognition, that--Oh, my God--he's accidentally become a star.