Car Wars

Note to Young Parents: If you can establish the illusion of omnipresence when your children hit puberty, and can carry over the affectation of omniscience through their freshmen years in high school, I guarantee that fear will be their constant companion.

They’ll still do plenty of stupid stuff, and because it’s stupid, they’ll get caught sometimes, thus feeding the illusion that you are all-knowing, but I have the hope (and possible delusion) that it has stopped them from doing colossally stupid stuff.

Anyway, that’s my consolation. If ignorance is bliss, feel free to keep me in the dark.

I’ve stumbled into my superpowers by accident. It’s truly been a case of being in the right place at the right time, or if you’re the victim, of being in the wrong place at the right time for mom to appear out of nowhere.

The girls can probably share their experiences with that "busted" feeling, so it was with a great deal of amusement when earlier this week while on an errand, I was detoured around the back property of the high school and discovered Vicky’s car parked in an "off limits" area. Believe me, my psychosis could lead me to shadow them around all day, but even I have my limits. I just happened to be trying to avoid traffic, and drove by a spot where ordinarily, Vicky would not park.

I lost no time in asking why she was parked there, and satisfied by a logical and plausible explanation, ended the inquisition. She said someone was parked in her spot, and there was nowhere else to park. Evidently my superpowers still bug her, because a couple of days later, very casually, she asked me how I knew she had parked in back of the stadium. Parents, this is the part where you smile, shrug and say something vague, like "Oh, I dunno, I kinda get around and see all kinds of things."

It annoys them, but I figure they annoy me plenty of times.

At any rate, it brought to my attention a terrible injustice that the kids at the high school must deal with daily. Teachers are taking the parking spots that these students have paid for. How unfair is that? Understand that as far as I’m concerned, not only is driving a privilege and NOT a right, I’d rather they didn’t drive to school at all. Well, maybe I need to back up a bit on that one, I’ve grown accustomed to Vicky taking over my taxi service, but anyway, the point is, these kids have paid for those spots, and those teachers are taking them.

I’m afraid (and amused) that I’ve created some work for a few security guards. I got a call from Vicky this morning to tell me she had no parking again, and was going to have to look around the area for a spot. I immediately paid a little visit to my friend the principal, and in moments she had mobilized everyone in the office, and had the police resource officer running the plates. Oh oh. Somebody’s not going to like me very much. I’m guessing there’s going to be a bit of a crack down on the faculty today, because THEY had been complaining that the kids were in THEIR lot. I’m a little bit sorry for it—it stinks that teachers have to park very far and carry all their stuff, but they must have some grievance procedure they can use, that isn’t taking my kids assigned spot, so she ends up parking somewhere illegally.