If your school does the infamous car line pick-up, then you know what I am talking about here. You probably have a real love/hate relationship with car line police. For me mostly it’s hate.
Sure the car line has a few perks that should be represented here, before we put it on blast.
For starters, when it is raining or freezing you don’t have to get out of the car to get your child into school or pick them up. Also you don’t have to leave your pajamas to get your kid to and from school. If you are an introvert or antisocial, the car line ensures that you may avoid all human contact should you choose so. I am racking my brain here, but I think that is about it for car line bonuses.
Now on to the cons of the car line.
People start lining up in the car line a good hour before school ends. Do you all not have somewhere to be? So if you want to get your child quickly and get somewhere, you have to put in some serious time sitting in the car line. This isn’t so bad if you have a few apps to mess around with or a good book to read. But if you’re like me with two screaming toddlers, 20 minutes feels like 48 hours of torture.
No one follows the car line rules. You can not back your Suburban up and go out the way you came! You have to sit in this mess along with the rest of us. We are all in this crappy thing together.
Someone always sees you doing something idiotic in the car line. Talking to yourself, inconspicuously picking your nose, chewing your fingernails or singing at the top of your lungs. You are so bored in the car line it is darn near impossible not to find yourself engaging in one of these behaviors.
There is about a 10% chance that the car next to you saw whatever it is you did. There is also about a 100% chance that you know them. This makes for some mildly awkward PTA meetings.
I recently did the car line math as I was sitting in the parking lot prison waiting for school to let out. I have put five years in already and by the time the twins leave elementary school I will have sat in the car line for 12 YEARS!
