Another scene

For some reason I found myself in another emotional scene today. Well, I was emotional. My friend that I was kicking out of the house took it pretty well.

I have a friend with kids at the school, who likes to drop in with them on their way home on Wednesdays. Wednesday is my only pick-up-from-school day, when I finish early at work, stride up to there as fast as I can, and bring the boys home in the car I cunningly leave there in the morning. An afternoon at home is a great opportunity to get things done around the house, spend some time with the boys, walk the dog, or even just let the kids do their thing while I have a coffee and sit in the sun doing nothing. None of which will happen if we have visitors.

My friend's little girl who is Michael's age loves to see Winston. They don't have much space or sunlight at their small place up the valley from us. My friend doesn't work, and doesn't get to spend all that much time with other adults. I understand all that, and I have only twice knocked back requests to visit (with the reason that Marcus has important homework to concentrate on).

Once, they had just arrived, when my friend asked would it be OK to leave the kids with me while he went downtown on the bus to do something (doesn't drive). I think I was open-mouthed for a while but then said yes. Today he asked at school if I would take them up to our place while he walked in the other direction to return some DVDs. I said yes, but decided on the way home (driving slowly so I wouldn't have a collision causing the airbag to decapitate Marcus) that this would be the last time.

After a while he turned up. Usually I make coffee but today I was determined to hold him to his suggestion that they wouldn't stay long. I did the dishes while he hung around. Outside, Michael and the visiting kids were stabbing a cardboard box with pencils. I was just working up to saying "no more Wednesday visits" when the boy, who is Grade 6 and should know better, pretended to stab Michael in the head with his sharp pencil.

I went ballistic. I have got quite used to parenting my friend's kids in front of him, as he doesn't seem to care how they cross a road, or eat a piece of drippy fruit. In this case I gave his son a dressing down while both father and son looked at me blankly.

With my dander up, I told my friend that we needed a break from visits, that daylight time at home is precious in winter and there's no way I can do anything that needs doing etc and so forth. He said that was fine, and didn't seem to take offence, but continued to hang around for another fifteen minutes.

I don't know. Was I being unfair?