As a parent of children in elementary school I deal with
daily pick-up and drop-off car lines, which are enough to make the soberest of
judges crave vodka for breakfast. Every
morning three students and one adult are positioned in front of the school, along
the covered sidewalk, where they meet and open doors of the arriving vehicles
carrying students. This drop-off process
sounds efficient in theory. One might
even expect drivers to catch on to the fact that there are three available
helpers lined up who can open three vehicle doors at a time. That would be a reasonable expectation, but
reason is something we tend to run short on here in my neck of the woods.
Each morning I watch with gritted teeth and clenched fists as
the vehicles ahead of me crawl to the first helper and stop. And, each morning the rest of us wait in line
while kids are dropped off, one car at a time, even as the helpers try to wave
drivers forward to the two kids who are standing there, ready to assist. Some people go the extra mile by parking in
that very spot so they can escort their
little ones to class, while the rest us of expose our kids to Italian profanity
(vodka time). Now, the two cars behind
the first car could just let their kids out, which would help move things along.
I know, silly me. Apparently their passenger doors only open
from the outside. I must have missed
that year model when I bought my truck.
It’s a little fancier, what with doors that open from both sides and
all.
The need for every child to be dropped off directly in front
of the school entrance escapes me. Maybe I am less of a mother because I boot my
kids out one or two car lengths before (gasp) someone can open the door for
them. They are close to the entrance, I
can watch them go in, and that area of the sidewalk is still covered. People seem to be a bit hung up on the
covered sidewalk. Rain is one thing, but
do kids need to be shaded at eight-fifteen in the morning for all of a couple
of seconds? Will it hurt them to walk a
few extra steps? Let’s contribute a little less to our nation’s childhood
obesity issue, folks.
The insanity does not end there. Things get bizarre in the afternoons, as well. Traffic backs up along the street in front of
the school at the same time every afternoon.
This upsets drivers who are trying to get to other destinations and
apparently causes a momentary loss of rational thinking, resulting in driving maneuvers
and behaviors worthy of traffic tickets
and bad reality television shows. On
several occasions I’ve seen impatient rednecks drive on the wrong side of the
road to pass the line of traffic. No one seems to care about blocking
intersections and right-of-way means nothing.
Right-of-way? You mean right
away? Oh, yeah. Now I get it.
You want me to go, like right away.
Yeah, that’s it, Smarticus. Keep driving.
For several years now I have been amazed at the way people
in my area fail to handle the simplest driving tasks. Yielding and merging ignorance runs rampant
and can bring traffic to an unnecessary halt when it’s not even rush hour. Multiple drivers arriving simultaneously at a
four-way stop confuses folks to the point of panic, like those old math
problems about two trains leaving two different stations at the same time. The drivers just look at each other,
bewildered. What to do? Do I go?
Do you? Do we draw straws?
Bless your pea pickin’ heart. How about I just wave you on ahead and we
call it good. I don’t think my auto
insurance covers stupid.
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