One of my wife's many many many tasks that help make our family go is taking our middle daughter to ballet class. This happens on Wednesdays, a day on which she does not work.

Except for this week.

This week was just flat out crazy.

And, usually, if there's craziness, it's on my end, and my wife is the one who ends up picking up the slack.

This time it was my turn.

Here's what happened.

I was responsible (in the first part of the day) for our two youngest daughters. They went to their school (I barely snuck in a haircut in the time between pickups...it is very hard for me to find the time for haircuts), then I picked up the older of the two to go to ballet.

In the afternoon I went into work and then took home my oldest daughter.

But let's talk about the ballet.

First of all, brag alert: My daughter is quite the ballerina. She follows directions well, and it was fun to see a sneak preview of her performance. (Yes, a performance. I'm going to have to sit through an hour-and-a-half of a ballet recital for what looked like a 3-minute segment that will feature my daughter.)

But watching my daughter dance was only part of the experience. The other part was listening to the moms of the other kids gossip. Boy, did they gossip.

Apparently their children's daycare has stopped serving alcohol at events. Oh, but they don't care. Their husbands seem to care, according to them. But, no, understand, they're not alcoholics. They just would like there to be alcohol. They don't really care. But now they're not going to go to any more of the get-togethers.

I didn't know whether to enjoy the conversation, or feel bad about eavesdropping, or be appalled at how they could easily be talking about me if I was still teaching in that town. But I certainly didn't have any desire (or knowledge of the subject matter, if we're honest) to join in the conversation.

I just sat and watched the ballet, as my daughter followed the directions and listened to the teacher...and their daughters did whatever the heck they wanted to.