This morning I overslept and was running a little late. Well, VERY late. I was still dressing and putting on makeup as I walked out the door. Trying to shave off a few minutes of my drive I took some back roads to work.

Bad idea.

Schoolbus/Minivan/Littlekidville.

The lumbering school buses that STOP quickly, but can never GO quickly. The neurotic minivan drivers who try to make up for their lack of good parenting by driving slowly. As if this will announce to the neighboorhood "HELLO! I AM A GOOD PARENT! I DRIVE SLOWLY OVER SPEEDBUMPS! PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE!"* And then there are the unsupervised little children jetting across the street, zipping down the sides of the road and general causing terror to all the phobic and rabid parents who are driving the aforementioned Child Deathtrap Minivans.

Driving in this kind of enviroment is hazardous enough. Much less when you are flustered from being late, trying to apply makeup AND eat your breakfast. But, I kept a careful eye on the road and managed to avoid mowing down small bodies. However, there WAS a school bus stopped on the road. It LOOKED like it was done picking up children. Then it started flashing yellow lights. Wait. What do yellow lights mean? Doesn't that mean it's about to GO?!

No, that means it's about to flip out the little red sign and flash it's red lights and stop traffic for infernal amounts of time. However, by the time I realized this, it was too late to stop. I did, hit my brakes for a squealing effect. You know, so all the suburban mothers would know I at least CONSIDERED not plowing over their children. (I could tell some of them were psycic and knew I had no qualms about killing living things. Or was it the goosefeathers still stuck in my grill? To my credit, I DID try driving like a mother--once. However, all this prompted me to do were to mutter about mother's in general under my breath. Yes. THOSE kinds of mothers.)

So I flew past the schoolbus, sort of accidentally, with it's little stop sign flipped out, it's lights flashing, the little children blanching in terror at the side of the road, the mothers flipping me off in their minivans (way to set a example there Moms! THAT'S THE SPIRIT! Make sure they stop for schoolbuses AND flick people off! WAY TO KEEP THOSE KIDS BALANCED!) and everyone who bows to the idealism of suburbia, honking at me.

I have to confess: I did laugh--aloud. It cracked me up to anger those Riddilin needy mothers so much. But I did feel badly. Because I know I could have harmed a small child if I wasn't careful. (Anyone out there wanting to send me hatemail regarding that, feel free. But, if your going to imply that I am a horrible person who has no feelings (very possibly true!) and no small people to care for (very not true!) save your typing muscles. I have a very dear nephew who goes to school (though he happens to have a mother who TAKES him to school rather than letting him ride the yellow death shuttles) and I also happen to know someone who accidentally ran over a child. Just wanted you to know that so you can spare yourself the mounting of the moral high horse to look down your ill-figured nose at me.)

I wanted to point out to these angry mothers that if there weren't people like me to complain about, they would be stuck complaining about child molesters and sex in elementary school.

I'm just helping them to live. The better life.






*It is my personal belief parenting skills are shown in direct proportion to how "bad" of a driver you are. My sister, who is also a excellent mother, terrorizes the rest of suburbia in her BMW. Plowing over any suspicious people who will not get out of her way. My father used to speed like a demon, taught us how to talk ourselves out of speeding tickets, drives over medians and curbs and regularly drives on the shoulder.