The Drop Off Area

I used to loathe the infamous drop off line with its overly intense parents who felt compelled to jam on the gas pedal to move forward six feet and had to burn out leaving after chucking their kids out into the world, as others can here a frenzied "move! move! move!" coming from the car. Conversely, the parents who seemingly couldn't get their children out of the car without adjusting outerwear for each child, giving series of hugs and kisses and reminders, causing the veins in the temples of those behind them to throb, they were annoying too. Even the park and walkers, who couldn't drop their precious little cherubs off in the LINE and had to park and walk them in, always oblivious of natural stops in the line, really endangering their children, they too raised my blood pressure. All were part of the early morning and afternoon hum of school, the price we parents pay, if you will, to send our children to public education, where teachers keep them for hours at a time so we don't. have. to. hear. the. whining.

Oh, internoodles, I now long for those days. LONG for them, I tell you. Now that the kids are in a charter school that is 25 minutes away, we were thrilled, let me repeat that, THRILLED that two spots on the bus opened up. Those near hour round trips through sugar cane fields were getting old. I should have realized things may not go smoothly when I asked where we catch the bus, and the DRIVER could only tell me the name of one of the streets. She did, however, tell me it was right by the building that used to be a rec center. This was, in no way, helpful, as there is no signage that says anything about a rec center on the building she was referring to, so as a recent transplant, any of the buildings, really, could have been the one in question. Luckily, we found it the first day.

Let me also say that to call the meeting place a parking lot was reallllly raising the expectations of those looking for the area. I passed it three times before I realized this area was what she meant as a parking lot. It's a small field of grass with a vague traffic worn path through it. There are no parking spots, so everyone just sort of parks wherever, all higgledy-piggledy, double parking, some half hanging out into the streets. It's chaos. Oh, and I don't know why but EVERYONE backs into parking spaces down here. For everything. Me, the rebel I am, I don't and I try to be organized. People look at me weird.

I'm also used to people staying to wave, and once the bus passes, we're gone. As soon as that bus rounds the corner and can be seen, people are chucking kids out of their cars and speeding off. While the backing in thing actually helps in this, there are children I've seen jump out of the path of trucks--everybody drives trucks--to get in the bus line. I stay and wave to the bus, mainly because I don't want to take my life into my hands trying to jockey for leaving position. When I waved yesterday, and I only waited until the bus turned the corner, about 10 feet away, I was the last car in the "area" for parking. Last week, we drove up to a couple kids standing by a shed that's in the area, their parents already gone.

We'll see what this afternoon's pick up brings.