Nice to know

I'm not the most irresponsible mom in the carpool line.

Now, I'm definitely irresponsible. I've been known to smoke in my car while in line. I've been known to have a beer before going to pick up my daughter. I don't feel particularly guilty about that.

However, on a regular basis (only while waiting in the carpool line), I let my son unbuckle his seat belt and crawl all over inside the car, and even occasionally open the sun roof and stick his head out--but only the UrbanTruckster SUV. He's not allowed to do that in the PTLoser, because he knows how to lower the back seat, crawl into the trunk, and open the trunk lid from the inside. Which he's done while the car was moving. No, not safe. Not safe at all.

Which is why I break one law by making him sit in the front seat with his seatbelt on when we're moving. Because I'd rather him get hit by the airbag, than fall out of the back of the car and get run over. It seems to me to be the lesser of two evils.

But today I was reassured that I'm NOT the most irresponsible mom in the car line. Because today, the car in front of me contained the standard issue mom, plus a girl about my son's age. The girl was in the front seat, unbelted. Fine, we do that all the time.

BUT! The girl kept climbing out the passenger window. Sitting on the window ledge with only one arm and one leg inside the car. Now, granted, the car was in park, but we were still in the middle of the street! In the driving lane! Where anyone could have rear-ended me, sending my car into hers, and the girl's head would be squashed like produce at a Gallager show.

What. The. Fuck.

A few years from now, when there's a news report of a teenage girl who somehow managed to fall out of her boyfriend's car and die, I'll know who to blame. The mother.

Because it IS always our fault.