Carpool

The post I am about to write is different in tone but not intent than it would have been had I written it 45 minutes ago.

Mostly because I was really hungry 45 minutes ago.

This has been a long time coming: a new carpool rant!

Every morning I try to walk out the door with the kids at 7:37 AM. Years of experience has taught me that much time deviation either way, and I'm asking for trouble. If we're late, the usual snafu is that I nearly get into an accident with my neighbor Ricky. He's usually backing out of his garage as I'm returning home, and then we try and out-polite each other for a few seconds, then we laugh and wave. We haven't yet actually had a collision but we've come close.

I should have known better than to be late on a rainy day, even though we only left 4 minutes later than usual. Every spring on the first rainy day, the carpool line is hell. Mostly it's because the school patrol doesn't show up on rainy days. I'm not sure why that is, but I don't blame them. I sure wouldn't want to do their job on a rainy day.

But today that wasn't the problem. The problem was ASSHATS TURNING LEFT WHEN THEY SHOULDN'T. Let me try and describe how this works. Cars are supposed to approach from the West and turn left into the carpool drop-off area, which is sorta half-circular, cars moving counter-clockwise, with entrance and exit on the same street. Once we drop off, we are to exit to the right. We have been ordered by the school NOT to approach from the East (it's considered cutting the line, well, because it is) and NOT to turn left out of the carpool area because if you have the right mental picture of what I just described, if you turn left you're attempting to re-join the line of cars waiting to drop off their kids.

This morning there was a ridiculous number of people breaking both rules. I can handle the line-cutters, but the left turners? Should die soon. I can only hope. They sit there and block 8 or 10 cars behind them (who could easily turn right and get out of the way) while waiting for someone to let them turn left. Except the people on the street can't let them in, because no cars in the carpool drive are moving because some asshole IS TRYING TO TURN LEFT WHEN THEY SHOULDN'T. Kind of like a kid holding up a game of musical chairs because they were "out," but they're still waiting for someone to let them into a chair.

The really stupid part is that if someone intends to turn left out of the carpool line, if they pull all the way to the left side of the exit there's plenty of room for the cars behind to pass by on the right. The powers that be even removed part of a curb so that this would be possible. And yet, and yet--people are asshats. They just are.

Stick Girl and Simian Boy were worried about being tardy. Simian Boy has never been tardy, ever, and Stick Girl was tardy once, and that was The Dave's fault (having to do with his genetic "clock reading combined with estimating the duration of a task" disorder.) Plus, that was during Zoe's first year and we were all pretty clueless back then.

I assured the kids that a) getting a tardy isn't the end of the world, b) by the looks of things, everyone in school was going to be tardy, and c) the schools clocks are slow by 4 minutes, 35 seconds so they'd probably be fine.

They gladly hopped out of the car as early as they could in the carpool line because they could move a lot faster than the line of cars. Amazing what fear of punishment will do for a kid's attitude.

As I drove home, the carpool line was still backed up three blocks.

You can bet that there will be a "On rainy days please plan ahead we had way too many tardies please review the carpool line guidelines" note coming home on Thursday (all notes come home on Thursday). Problem is, the asshats who were turning left? Never read the notes OR the carpool guidelines and if they did, they would think it didn't apply to them.

BECAUSE THEY'RE ASSHATS.