As School Year Begins, Our MVP Is Benched

So I’m sitting on the couch hating the Mets, something I do on a continual basis--hate the Mets--though occasionally I have to gather myself and hate them extra hard.

This year, for example, when they’re headed for the playoffs, with a bunch of Dodger castoffs. Piazza. Hershiser. Guys we obviously didn’t need.

“Let me tell you about the Mets,” I say to the boy, launching into the fractured fairy tale of the New York Metropolitans, a team that 30 years ago broke the hearts of a million young Cubs fans. Including mine.

“That’s mean,” says the little girl, hearing about the Crash of ‘69, when the Mets came from nine games back to knock the Cubs, my favorite boyhood team, out of the race.

“I hate the Mets too,” says the boy.

“With luck, you’ll hate them forever,” I tell them.

And from the kitchen comes this really reasonable voice, the voice of a sensible person who somehow wandered into our house. Probably lost. Saw the light in the kitchen window and just walked in.

“I don’t think,” my wife says, “that you should be teaching them to hate things.”

“But he’s teaching us about the Mets,” the boy tells her.

“Those stinkin’ Mets,” the little girl says.

“Dad hates the Mets,” the boy says.

“Your dad dislikes the Mets,” she tells the kids.

*

Now let me issue this disclaimer that, in general, I am against hatred. In the wrong circumstances, it is a vile, destructive force.

That is why I reserve it only for important stuff. The Mets. Astroturf. Doctors.

Women don’t understand it, but men cherish the few things they hate. Without hate, there can be no love.

“You shouldn’t hate anything,” my lovely wife tells the children.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I lie.

So my wife continues putting the groceries away and chattering about what the kids need to do before the first day of school, to vacuum out their backpacks and make sure they have all their supplies together, in little piles on their desks. Ticonderoga pencils and felt-tip pens. Index cards. An IBM disk. Glue.

Which is when the accident happens. Stepping out to the garage, a step she has taken a million times, my wife slips. She falls. She doesn’t get up.

“Oh, darn,” she says, or some adult equivalent of “oh, darn,” maybe something a little more PG-13.

“What happened?” I ask.

“I twisted my foot,” she says.

“Oh, darn,” I say.

What happened, I’m pretty sure, is that she stepped out into the garage, thinking there would be a soccer shoe there, because there’s always a pile of soccer shoes there. Five, six pairs. We have more soccer shoes than Argentina. And they’re all piled by the kitchen door.

Only somebody had moved the pile of soccer shoes that is always there, an inexplicable action that threw my wife off balance and tumbled her to the floor, proving once again that motherhood is a much rougher sport than many fans realize.

“Are you OK?” asks the little girl, rushing to her side.

And her mother just sighs, because she’s pretty sure she’s not OK and can’t believe her bad luck--hurting herself the night before the first day of school. She sits on the step rubbing her foot, watching it swell.

“Come sit,” I say, helping her to the couch.

She can’t put any weight on it, which is a bad sign if you’re a coach or a husband. All the way to the living room, she does that little half-hop that injured linemen do.

“Ouch,” says the little girl in sympathy.

“I think you just twisted it,” I say.

“I don’t know,” she says worriedly.

We don’t panic right away. We wait 30 seconds, then we panic.

“Mom hurt her foot!” screams the little girl. “Mom hurt her foot!”

She announces this the way newspapers announce major events. LINDBERGH REACHES PARIS. GERMANS INVADE POLAND. MOM HURT HER FOOT. Same headline size.

“Mom hurt her foot!” the little girl says.

Two hours later, we are leaving the emergency room. I pull the car around, and a nurse wheels my wife out in a wheelchair. The last time this happened, she had a little red-haired girl in her lap, 2 days old, holding her like flowers. I check closely. No baby.

“Take care,” says the nurse, though I suspect she says this to everybody.

Back home, the rice is still cooking. For two hours now, it has cooked and still it is hard--hard as tiny teeth. It could cook a thousand years and it would still be this hard.

“Make them sandwiches,” my wife says, and I kind of mutter to myself. I’m not a total jerk. I’m half a jerk. Maybe three-quarters of a jerk. Muttering over the rice.

“What’s wrong?” she asks.

“The stupid rice isn’t cooking,” I say, and she flashes me that wife look that says, “I can’t believe I’m really going to grow old with you.”

I flash her that husband look that says, “I think you already have.” And she flashes me that wife look that says, “I know a good attorney.” They learn it from their mothers.

“What are we having for dinner?” the boy asks.

“How about a cup of coffee?” I ask him.

“I don’t drink coffee,” he says.

“Wanna start?” I say.

And on the night before the first day of school, the rice doesn’t cook. The dishes stack up. The sandwiches don’t taste right. Now, more than ever, the kids appreciate their mother.

They put her to bed with a pillow under her broken left foot, then huddle around, putting their hands on her forehead, feeling for fevers and combing her hair with their fingers, the way she always does with them, wishing her to be well again, preferably by morning.

“Want me to tell you about the Mets?” the little girl asks.

“Don’t depress her,” the boy says.

“Dad hates the Mets,” the little girl explains.

“Your Dad dislikes the Mets,” her mother corrects her.

“No, Mom,” she says. “I really think he hates them.”

Chris Erskine’s column is published on Wednesdays. His e-mail address is chris.erskine@latimes.com.