I’ve never had good luck with carpool.
When my son Kyle was in kindergarten, I eagerly arranged to share the mommy-chauffeur load with a family down the street. All was well for about six months and then the sabotage began.
It started with a beautiful girl. Doesn’t It always start with a beautiful girl? Little Sofia was glorious. She had long raven locks and a tiny button nose. Even more importantly, she played a mean game of hand-ball. Kyle fell head over heels in love with her.
Unfortunately, our carpool buddy, Christopher, was also smitten with Sofia. And so the war began to fight for the damsel’s affection.
It seemed for a time, Kyle had the upper hand, untill one day, right around Valentines and coinciding with a fancy bracelet adorning Sofia’s arm, Christopher gained her favor. Kyle was bent on revenge.
The next Monday, as I strapped Christopher into his booster seat, I struggled with the buckle. For the life of me, I couldn’t get it to click. Studying the lock more intently I saw something or lots of somethings were jamming it.
One by one, I pulled out french-fries from the buckle insert. Kyle laughed in glee and I knew who the culprit was. After three days of fries mysteriously appearing in the lock, Christopher’s mom was so ticked off she not only refused to let her son in the car, but Kyle and I were mocked by all the kindergarten mom’s as difficult to carpool with.
Almost ten years later, still stinging from kindergarten wounds, I decided to try again. One week in, I lost a kid.
Not dead lost. Lost lost. I couldn’t find the kid in our carpool meet-up area after school.
I found my daughter Faith and her friend Alexa, but the boy was MIA.
We drove up and down the road home. It was the longest two miles of my life and I did it four times. I called his mom(who didn’t answer) and banged on his door (no one home) and besieged the neighbors to help.
I dreaded facing his mom. What the heck would I tell her?
Finally, my neighbor called with the news. The young man had gone home with a friend and forgot to tell anyone
Carpool doesn’t like me. Then again, maybe I just need some french-fries for the boy’s seat?
