Living in Oblivion

Sometimes I think it must be nice to be able to live a life of total detachment and disregard for your fellow humankind, to live life in a perpetual state of oblivion. Like ignorance, it must be bliss. There's no place where I see this more prominently displayed than at the girls' school, and school programs in particular.

It all starts off in the mornings. It's a very simple ritual called "dropping off your kids" involving a seemingly simple procedure where you drive through one of the two "drop off zones", you stop, your kid gets out of the car, you wave and blow kisses goodbye, and you drive away. What's so frickin' hard to understand here? Yet there are consistently ten cars in front of me that are holding up the entire freakin' line while they take five minutes apiece getting their kids' crap together. What are they doing?! Packing a lunch? Assembling a science project? What? And you know they had all the time in the world to get that crap together while the jag-offs in front of them were taking their sweet time "dropping off" their kids. Do us all a favor. If you want to take forever parting sweet farewells, park and walk, OK?

Then there are the moms who feel the need to get out of the car, walk around to the other side and open the back door for the kid. You'd think the kid must have too much to carry to be able to open the door, but, once again, you'd be dead wrong. That kid's got the longest, fully-functioning monkey arms that you ever did see, but the hands they're attached to are apparently not able to pull the lever on a car door. Give me a break. God gave us all opposable thumbs...what the hell am I even talking about? You don't even need an opposable thumb to open a car door! Just let your kid open his own freakin' door! The only thing you need to do as a parent is keep the car in park. Do you think you can manage that, car-door-opening mama?

Then there are the school programs. These are the worst. School programs bring out the absolute worst in parents who believe it is their inalienable right to do whatever the hell they want in the name of seeing their kid perform. This afternoon, the entire first grade class performed a series of holiday music in the school's multipurpose room. The program started at 1:30, but we got there around 1:00 because we knew it was going to be a zoo. We were still six rows back, but were able to secure some isle seats and an unobstructed view of Kyra where I could get some good video. Yes, I'm a video-nerd dad.

Wouldn't you know it, five minutes before the program starts, parents are streaming through the doors and standing right in front of where the rest of us, with asses half asleep from sitting on those forsaken metal chairs, have been sitting for the past half-hour. Thankfully, more chairs were set up at the back of the room and many used them. Even so, there was still one nimrod standing next to the front row taking pictures, looking back every so often to see if he was obstructing anyone's view. This guy must have been Oblivion's King because he was obstructing everyone's view and was still somehow unable to interpret the glares of 100+ parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles. He only squatted down on the floor after a family member suggested that he might be in the way.

It's sad. I'm always happy and excited to see the girls perform, but accompanying that excitement is a sense of dread that the antics of these idiots will compete for my attention over the course of the program. So I put on my game face, cheer and clap and encourage my daughters, then come and vent by writing a scathing blog. For now, that seems to work.