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Wednesday, September 7, 2011

things I've learned about Parent Pick Up

You know all those survival shows? The ones where some dude parachutes into some random place and wears a llama carcass for 7 days and "teaches" you how to survive? I think I have found their next, and most lethal location.

Elementary School Parent Pick-Up Zones.

Seriously, if you are laughing its for one of two reasons. You either get it, or you don't because you have never ventured that far into the dark side. Ah, ignorance is bliss. I will give you adrenaline junkies and drama seekers this heads up -- go to your nearest elementary school right around dismal. If you want to make friends bring a chilled six pack and a box of wine and leave all sharp objects at home.

While I was sitting in the 42 car deep line yesterday with a baby screaming in the back seat waiting for my 4th grader I had a few epiphanies. In no specific order, and I do not admit to actually doing any of this:

  • When you find your self wanting to say, or hearing someone else say "Bring it, biotch!" while waiting for your child, it may mean someone has taken things a little too far.
  • The child on the playground who hip-checked their way to the front of the line at the monkey bars because rules don't apply to them ... they grow up to be the jackholes who pass me and my 41 other line-waiting-rule-abiding-compatriots and zip in front of someone who has accidentally left a car sized gap because they have slipped into a waitingformykidinonelongassedline coma because the rules still don't apply to them.
  • When describing the parent pick up process to your spouse, who has never ventured that far into the great wilderness, and the only descriptive verbs you can utilize all rhyme with "ducking" and you can't say them in front of the kids, your kids may go to the same school as mine.
  • It is better to quietly hope for a pigeon to poop on the head of the moron who drives on the wrong side of the road because they can't seem to understand the difference between right and left rather than to tell them they should go back to kindergarten because they seem to have missed that critical lesson. The kindergarten teacher really has enough on her hands as is.
  • Accept it going in: there are two lines that merge only at the very end. I will be in the slower one, no matter which I chose. Always.
  • Its damn fun to fantasize about running over the parents who won't use the crosswalks while calmly explaining to your children that this is precisely why we always use crosswalks, but its not a good thing to actually do.
  • Keeping that last epiphany in mind, maybe I should stick with taking the car and not drive the truck, ever, to parent pick up. I don't pride myself on things like self control.
  • Yelling at the teacher whose sporting a funny smelling orange vest and sweating his/her underpaid and under appreciated butt off keeping your child educated AND safe doesn't make the line go any faster, but it does make you look like the raging asshat you apparently are.

Having been a teacher I can tell you that I was always baffled why normally composed parents seemed so frazzled and deranged at parent pick up. Now, I know. I am a rational woman. Heck I think I am even a pretty nice person, always trying to give people the benefit of the doubt and all that. But by the time I pull up to have my ten year old get in the car and say "sheesh mom, what took so long?!" its a bit hard to keep the sane facade up.

Oh who am I kidding, I haven't been pulling that off for years.

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