grumpy parent

Okay.  Today, only one full week of school under our belts, I had the first grumpy parent on car-rider duty.

Picture this.  It's 7:35 in the morning and my two partners and I have been opening car/truck/van doors for approximately twenty minutes.  One right after the other.  Open.  Good morning.  Shut.  Open.  Good morning.  Have a nice day.  Shut.  Twenty minutes of this so early in my day.  So early, in fact, that the crows peer from the telephone wires and caw at us.

Then this little ragged old clunker drives up right in front of me. 

Me, no less. 

I look behind the clunker and see cars into infinity, beyond Aunt Marcia's Day Care Center, which is approximately 1/4 mile back.  Lined up.  Waiting to drop their precious children at the gate. . .some worrying if their child will get free school breakfast or not. . .but that all depends on if they get their child in the gate within the next five minutes.

Anyway, the clunker parks right in front of me. 

Lucky me!

Then the child in the front seat of the clunker hands his mom, who is still in her flowered printed house coat, he hands her his daily calender to sign.

At this point I'm thinking:  We should have put up those Burma Shave type signs along the road from Aunt Marcias to the school drop-off gate.  You know.  The ones that say:  Kiss your child now.  Then the next one says:  Do you have your planner signed?  The next one says:  Get your lunch money now.  

If we had had those signs stobbed in the ground along the way, then my day would have started on a happier note, I know. 

But no!  We haven't made the signs yet, so my day was set up for failure, if you will.

Now back to the clunker.  She's signing the planner on Monday morning at 7:35 A.M.  The child in the back seat exits while I'm waiting for the child in the front seat to get his calendar signed and stuffed into his 3-ring binder which is already crammed-full with God knows what.

So I stupidly say,  "Come on out.  You can put that binder in your backpack out here.  There are cars waiting behind you."

Wrong!

So the obedient, sweet, wonderful, great-writing child clambers out of the car, the whole while trying to stuff this stupidly thick three-ring binder into his already full backpack.  Then I shut the clunker door.

But the story doesn't end there.  I wish it had of.  But it didn't.

The clunker lady in the flower printed house coat just sits there.  . . still holding up traffic.

Uh oh!

Then she rolls down her window.  No.  She doesn't press a button that magically sends the window into Neverland.  She cranks it down.. . .and I hear her speaking. . .faintly.

So, being the good car-rider duty person that I am, I go over to her clunker and say,  "Yes?"

And she repeats her sentence:  "Next time, don't slam my door shut!"

I put on my prettiest, cutest, lovingest smile that I can muster up and reply,  "Okay.  Have a nice day."

Grrrrrrrrrr!

My buddies on car-rider duty and I discussed this episode and we came to the conclusion that it is the clunker's problem. . .not ours.

It still didn't make me feel any better because I adore her children.  I especially adore them considering their homelife circumstances.  In fact, I think I love her children more than yesterday.

Tomorrow I'm moving one spot down on the sidewalk and letting one of my other car-rider buddies open the clunker's door!  It's amazing how one little non-essential sentence can set your mood for eight long hours. 

P.S.  Pray for all the clunker families.  They're under so much stress in today's times.

Comments

[Mary Anne]

Sadly, clunkers seem to raise clunkees.
Very impressed that you bit your tongue with that parent. How many stitches did you require? LOL

[Tiffany]

Probably hung over and headed back to bed.