MonDaze School Drop Off

I always giggle a little when we pull into the circle drop off at T's school on Monday mornings at the last millisecond and find about a hundred other parents in the exact same frenzied state.

The drill: you pull up to this one way thing, stop, push your kid out into a snowbank and proceed onward, lest you hold up traffic out into the street in two directions. It is really organized chaos and typically each day you can witness a mini-van driving mother yeilding a cell phone nearly running over some kid that isn't her own.

Today was an ordinary Monday. We were last minute: first couldn't find one very important glove (with the grippers for catching footballs), then there was the missing checkbook (important for buying lunch tickets when the lunch account is in the red), the dog ran away/after a squirrel, I lost my cell phone (inside my running shoe), and I dropped a bowl of dry Honey Nut Cheerios all over the floor. Nonetheless, we made it to school three minutes prior to the bell.

Perfect timing, really.

Except so did approximately 200 other parents. So we waited. And waited. And finally we were able to turn into the drive. We were just one car length from the first drop off sidewalk and the car in front of me stops, pops its trunk, and we wait some more. Child number one pulls one backpack from said trunk. Things fall to the ground. She pulls another backpack out, and more items fall to the ground. She repacks. Cars are waiting. They are backed up further than I can see. She is then on the ground, rummaging for something underneath my car. She reappears. She shuts the trunk. Makes her daddy driver reopen the trunk. Finds one very LARGE hairbrush at the bottom of the trunk and looking happy and pleased, goes on her merry way. In the meantime, child number TWO appears from the backseat. His bags sort of burst from the door and again, go flying. There are boots, snowpants, papers, and yes, one more backpack. Something again is beneath my car and he's teetering on the edge of a snowbank, trying to motion me forward while I am motioning to him that it is okay to get whatever this treasure is, lest he fall on his face on the ice and kill himself while I pull forward. He finally get whatever this is, and in his frustration, throws everything into the school yard to regroup.

At this point, the dad in the car in front of me PARKS, gets out of the car (mind you parents are now HONKING), and proceeds to go try and "help" this poor child by SCREAMING at him. I hear his little speech on responsibility clear as mud through my NPR, defroster on four, and child talking. I am still stuck. And MY child, like all these other children, CANNOT GET OUT OF THEIR OWN CARS. Finally, the poor kid goes on his way up the sidewalk, tripping the entire way on one leg of his snowpants, which did not quite make it all the way into his second backpack. The father quickly makes his way back to his car.

And we wait.
And wait.
Finally said father reemerges from his car.
It seems, he's lost his keys in a snowbank somewhere.

Like father, like son?