I'm A Bad Dad. Again. Still.

Assuming my parenting license hasn't been revoked by then, I fully expect that for Father's Day I'll be getting one of those trucker caps emblazoned with "World's Worst Dad."

At Kindergarten drop off today, we were greeted unexpectedly by the charming sight of Isaac's classmates happily scurrying around the halls dressed as super heroes, princesses, animals, football players et al.

It was Costume Day. And if I ever even knew this in the first place, I had clearly forgotten it now.

In my defense, the school communicates everything in a daily blizzard of paper stuffed inside my son's Spiderman folder. Lunch menus, notes from the teacher, fund raising forms, show-and-tell schedules, milk money forms. It all comes home in one giant ream of booklets and half-page slips. Having never been accused of possessing superior organizational skills, I tend to haphazardly file these in inappropriate places throughout the house or toss them on a pile destined for the recycling bin.

So somewhere along the way, apparently, there was a slip of paper tucked in announcing that March 14 was Costume Day. I swear I never saw it. Not to mention, in my book, there's one day a year given over to costume wearing, and by my count, it's still seven months hence.

All of which meant far less than squat when my son caught site of his pals dancing around in their gleefully assumed alter-identities. First came a look of glassy shock as he registered the scene. Then, after some little smartass fairy princess danced up and asked him derisively "Where's YOUR costume?" came the tears.

Nay, sobs. Body racking, shoulder bobbing sobs. Disconsolate doesn't even scratch the surface.

So there I stood, fully exposed. The World's Worst Dad. Live and In Person. Suddenly paralyzed by the giant rock that had appeared out of nowhere and taken up residence in my gut. "I'm sorry, Isaac. I forgot," didn't have a particularly calming affect on the situation. But it was all I had.

As we are perpetually late arriving, by this point the student teacher was gently directing Isaac to get his ass into the classroom. In a frenzied attempt at "I can fix this!" I told him I'd run home, get his ninja costume and bring it back in a little while. "OK," he choked through his tears.

Off I went on a dead sprint, the vision of that tear-streaked face etched in my mind. Raced to preschool to drop off Miles. Made a land-speed record back to the house. Dashed upstairs to Isaac's closet and began frantically clawing through his clothes in search of the ninja costume. It was nowhere to be found. What to do? What the holy hell to do?? Beads of panic sweat began to form.

After a very long two minutes, I found a wizard cape in the back of the closet. A very cool wizard cape, shiny purple. This will have to do. Tires squealing, I buzzed a mad beeline back to kindergarten, cutting off slow moving old folks and farmers all the way.

Staggering into the building out of breath , I stumbled the last 100 yards like Ben Braddock crashing Elaine Robinson's wedding. Knocked quietly on the classroom door. The teacher smiled, beckoned me in.

Swelling with triumph, I caught my son's eye and approached with the wizard cape held out as if I were bestowing upon him something ancient and sacred. He rose and returned my gaze. The tears were long gone. The look was at first quizzical. Then angry.

"It's the wrong costume," he snarled, roughly snatching it out of my hands and walking back to storytime. I had been dismissed.

"You're welcome....," I hissed quietly through clenched teeth.

His birthday is in three weeks. Anyone know where I can get a "World's Most Ungrateful Little Shit" trucker cap?