Friday, December 17, 2010

Step Away From the Car...

And stay away from it. Really. Put your license down on the ground and no one will get hurt.

Because some people are just not qualified to be operating a skateboard, much less a motor vehicle. I witness this every morning when I drop my daughter off at school. I don't mean the teens who attend the adjoining high school pulling in and looking for parking in their parking lot, either. Most of them are surprisingly slow and careful drivers, at least near the school.

No, I am talking about those idiots who come flying into the elementary school parking lot, dodging kids with band instruments, weaving through traffic and then sitting for damn near forever. You would swear they were jockeying for pole position at Daytona. Every morning.

Normally I just kind of roll my eyes and continue with my day. Today, however, continuing with my day required coming home, sitting down at the computer, and venting about the stupidity. I have a seriously low moron threshold on the best of days and today was no exception. This morning I saw a whole new level of stupid.

Picture the parking lot shaped like a really long horse shoe. Pulling in to the school lot to drop your kid off, you drive up the back aisle of parking spots and pull along side a curb and sit and wait. You wait because all of the cars in a huge line in front of you have a kid or three to drop off and you need to just wait your turn. No one wants to be there sitting, we want to drop our kid off and get going. Especially in this cold weather, when my jeep is still freezing because it hasn't heated up enough yet to be blowing any heat. Nonetheless, we wait. Except that some people don't.

Today this idiot comes flying into the parking lot, races up around the curve around all of the waiting cars, and just about takes out a family in the crosswalk. Didn't even slow down for them. Then, because as the family is crossing the cross walk my kid is getting out of the car, just as I pull forward to leave, this dumb, impatient, bitch whips over in front of me, nearly clipping my front bumper with her back one, inches forward a few feet, and throws her car into park. Three kids come creeping out of the car at a snails pace...if that snail had been dipped in molasses and then frozen...all stopping to say their goodbyes and last minute chatting. They finally start to walk away and the passenger side window goes down and the mom starts yapping some more...and keeps yapping. The kids are obviously cold and getting impatient, but mom just keeps running on. Finally they do walk away and the window goes back up. The car did not start moving, though. The idiot then proceeds to sit there watching her kids until they are all out of sight and in the building. That wouldn't have been a problem, but they have parking spots for doing that and she couldn't be bothered. Now, all of her kids are out of sight and in the building so she starts moving. Inching along watching the school. In case it spit her kids back out and she had to rescue them or something, I guess. By this time we are at the other side of the horse shoe and nearing the exit. There is a crosswalk there, too. This moron is so busy inching along watching the school (because her kids were long out of sight at this point) and not paying attention that she almost takes out another group of kids. Little ones this time. Crossing guard gets her attention and she snaps out of it and just drives away like nothing happened.

Seriously, how does someone at that level of stupid still have a license? How many people count as points when it is only because you weren't paying attention?

I worry, far and away, more about this kind of rampant stupidity than I ever did about the teenagers driving to and from school that I see on a daily basis. Whatever crackpot joke of a license she has, I can only hope that it is revoked soon.

Take care,
Cindi