Marked Woman

I need a less conspicuous vehicle, my Jeep is too easily identified.  Also, the drop off and pick up procedure at Master J's school completely sucks.  Big time.

On day one at the new school, I did what I have done for the past five years on school mornings, I tried to drop my child off at school.  For five years I have driven up, kicked my child at the curb and then continued on through to the exit.  For five years I have never had an issue with this.   The new school does not allow this.  The new school insists that you drive all the way to the end of the parking lot and ONLY drop your child in an area about ten feet long.  I did not know this.  So I pull up in line, kick my child out at the curb and try to continue driving only to see a lady running towards me frantically.  I roll down my window and she explains that I'm not allowed to drop my child off there, that I must instead drive way the eff down to the other end.  Okay, whatever, I'll do my best to follow the rules.  That's strike one.

On day one after school, I park in the parking zone and get out to wait for my child.  No problems.  On day two, I drop him off in the proper place in the morning and don't get in trouble.  After school I park in the parking zone and get out to go wait for my child.  No problem.  On day three, which was Friday, I drop him off with no issues.  After school, I park in the parking zone to wait for my child.  I see him coming towards me and then he disappears.  My thermometer is registering 118 degrees so I opt to wait in my car until I see him at the curb, with the intention of getting out of my vehicle to get him as soon as I see him.  I don't see him.  Ten minutes goes by and I'm still waiting.  Where the hell is my kid?  Another five minutes pass.  And then I see the principal making her way over to my car.  Uh oh, now what did Master J do?  Turns out, nothing.  One of the teachers saw him and sent him to wait at the end of the parking lot.  Why?  Because they assumed (incorrectly) that my intention was to wait in my car and allow my child to cross three lanes of cars to get into mine.  Um, no.  I was waiting until I saw him to get out of my car because it's miserable degrees out right now.  So now my child has been waiting at the end of the parking lot in the sun and heat for fifteen minutes.  Awesome.  That's strike two.

This morning I dropped Master J off at the end of the parking lot just like I was supposed to.  I had told him on Friday that if he didn't see my car parked, he was to go to the end of the parking lot so I could pick him up.  After school today I pulled into the lot about a minute after the bell rang.  I saw him standing on the curb but knew I would not be able to pick him up there so I rolled down my window and told him to go to the end and I would pick him up.  When I looked up from telling him this, I could see both of the parking demons at the end of the lot staring at me.  Obviously they were waiting to pounce on me should I make the tragic error of picking up my child from the wrong location.  I drove on through, under surveillance. 

At the end of the lot there was a traffic jam with about five cars parked along the "correct" curb and another two in front of me waiting to get there.  Master J was standing next to another child at the end.  The parents in the two cars ahead of me waved their children to them.  One of them was the kid standing next to Master J, so I also waved Master J over.  As the children were getting into the cars in front of me, and Master J was getting into my car, the parking police ran over and opened my front door to tell me that he couldn't get into my car there.  The reason?  Because there was a garbage can nearby and that was "gross".  I'm not even kidding.  And that's strike three.

I'm officially going to be a marked woman for the rest of the year.  You know damn well that every time I pull into that lot they're going to be watching me and waiting for me to make one wrong move.  And then they will pounce.  Folks, I am nothing if not a law abiding citizen.  I don't go out of my way to break the rules or cause problems, especially at my child's school.  But seriously, if you're going to let kids get into two cars in front of me, but get after me because my child is five feet closer to the garbage can, I'm going to have an issue.  And I'm going to start pushing the limits of rules to the very edge.  See ya tomorrow!