Medicate The Flying Monkeys

In case you didn't get the memo, I am not the most patient woman in the world. I think it could safely be said that I am not even in the top ten, although Mabel's mother did once compare me to Mother Teresa.

The #1 son had Academic Team practice after school until 5:00 today. There was a whole passel of cars waiting outside Basementia, so I parked in the faculty lot. A few kids trickled out around 4:50, and two cars pulled away, leaving a space right in front of the main entrance. I moved up to that spot. My regret set in immediately.

While I do not technically dislike kids who are not mine, and who I am not responsible for in any way, I DO find them to be incredibly annoying. The minute I pulled up in front of the building, a pack of creatures the rivals of the Flying Monkeys in The Wizard of Oz spilled out of the door, off the sidewalk, out of the fence, and into my daytime nightmare. Some boys slid along on frozen chunks of sleet in the schoolyard with the grace of Frankenstein at a cotillion. An odd duck of a kid who looked like that alien dude in Meatballs 2 peered into my passenger window, caught my eye, and nodded like we were equals. Three girls climbed over the fence, gaped into my car, and started chattering like that chipmunk I once saved and inadvertently fed to my cats. The people in charge stood with the doors to the institution propped open, happily oblivious to the carnage they had just released.

It took a few minutes to figure out what group this could be. Not basketball players, not cheerleaders, not academic teammies, not yearbookies. They were small, so I judged it was some type of 6th grade shenanigans set loose upon an unsuspecting world. For a moment, I deemed it to be the kids from the afterschool program, the ones who must go to tutuoring for their two-week grade faux pas. Then I decided it couldn't be them. There were usually just one or two kids waiting to be picked up from that, because the moment they were released, they got into cars and were whisked away. This mob was something new. No loving parents awaited to snatch them home at a moment's notice.

When the #1 son finally made his exit, he confirmed that they were indeed the afterschool tutoring group. Those poor parents must still be recovering from the four snow days last week.

What kids these days need is more medication.