A Light at the End of the Carpool, Part Three – The Finale

It was at the beginning of this school year, on September 20, 2023, that I posted a column entitled “Celebration Injury.” I had celebrated too early, and my feelings were hurt. Along with my gas budget and my will to live.

Seventeen months prior to that, I thought I was a free man. In a column in April of 2022, I was giddy with anticipation. Son Number Two was getting his license the next week and I was beside myself with joy because I was about to be liberated forever from the shackles and chains of carpool.

Damn the insane insurance costs, it was going to be worth it. I had been driving kids to and from school in one carpool or another for roughly two hundred years, and it had lost its luster fairly early on.

How much would it cost to add a second teenage boy to our insurance policy? I didn’t care, because money didn’t matter when balanced against carpool. I’ve never been freed from a long imprisonment in a POW camp, but I would imagine it’s a very similar feeling to being freed from carpool.

Well, it turned out that I had done the school day arithmetic, but not the school schedule calculus. I thought, foolishly, that since Number Two the senior and Number Three the sophomore would be at the same school playing the same sport, my carpool days were behind me.

I did not account for the fact that seniors take virtually no classes, and Number Two would be leaving school literally two and a half hours before his younger brother. By the time I needed him to drive his brother home, he’d already been home, eaten two meals, watched a movie, and was at the gym.

That left me and the other neighborhood parents still caged in the carpool POW camp, needing to pick up the sophomores. Damn you, schedule calculus! The one thin silver lining in my carpool cloud of despair was that we only had to pick them up from school. Son Number Two still takes them in the morning. But anyone who has ever done carpool knows that is small consolation. Pickup is waaaay worse than drop off.

So, I had to wait another seven months before I would be freed and get to celebrate for real. Well, my friends, today is the day! This afternoon is my last scheduled carpool pickup ever. Son Number Three goes for his behind-the-wheel test on Friday morning.

Now, granted, he still has to pass the test to get his license, but I’m confident. He’s the most cautious driver of the three so far, and he’s good. He should be just fine.

If you still think I might be counting my chickens before they hatch, think again. Nothing can derail this celebration now. You can Marc my words, if he doesn’t pass his driver’s test, he’ll be walking home from school for the rest of the year, starting this Friday afternoon.

Again, it's hard for me to express the joy I feel when I think of never driving carpool again, but to try to put it into monetary terms, it will be totally worth the cost of whatever bill is coming my way on Friday morning when I add a third teenage boy to our insurance plan.

See you soon,

-Smidge

 

Copyright © 2024 Marc Schmatjen

 

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Brain Child

Our family has officially made the transition. We have unwillingly breached the barrier and found ourselves on the other side. Things are bad.

We have a middle schooler now.

Life was so much simpler last year when Son Number One was still a sixth-grader. For starters, he was still at the same school as the other two. The elementary school is nine feet from our house. School drop off and pick up was a breeze.

Now, Number One goes to school all the way across town. Besides the fact that we’re forced to actually drive the car there, the location presents a few other challenges. A long time ago, when they built the middle school, the Rocklin city planners decided that it would be good to bury it way back in a residential area on a small street. To add to the fun, the only reasonable way into the neighborhood is at an intersection with the world’s slowest traffic light and a six-foot-long left turn lane. I regularly sit in my car, a quarter-mile from the light, listening to five middle schoolers jabber and squinting into the distance to count how many green arrows I’m not able to take advantage of. It’s relaxing.

Then, a few years ago, for reasons unexplainable by actual reasoning, the city planners decided to OK the placement of a Dutch Brothers drive-thru coffee shack on a lot roughly the same size as Juan Valdez’s hat, AT THE SAME DAMNED INTERSECTION. If you are not familiar with Dutch Brothers, they are a coffee company with a cult following. At any time of the day, there are no less than seven hundred cars lining up to get coffee from this place. It’s not as if it’s free beer, so I can only assume they somehow infuse crack cocaine into the coffee during the brewing process. That’s the only logical explanation for the crowds.

Speaking of drugs, I imagine this is how the city planning meeting went:

City Planner One: “Dude, Dutch Bros wants to put a coffee place there.” [pointing to the map and exhaling a huge cloud of bong smoke]

City Planner Two: [taking a rip off the bong] “Cool. Wait. Doesn’t that intersection get kinda crowded sometimes, bro?”

One: “Yeah, man, ‘cause of the school. Have you ever had Dutch Bros coffee, man? I think they put crack in it.”

Two: “Sweet, bro. If we say yes, do you think they’ll give us free donuts?”

One: “Totally.”

Two: “Sweet.”

[more bong hits]

So, between the school traffic and the drug traffic, a helicopter is really starting to look like a cost-effective option for our middle school carpool group.

Unfortunately, the hassle of getting Son Number One and his friends to and from school now is the least of our middle school problems. The main problem is that we have a middle schooler. If you don’t have one, let me explain.

We’ve been noticing a change in Son Number One’s behavior for some time now. Initially, we chalked it up to him just being grumpy because he considered his two younger brothers to be annoying. That was an easy explanation, since they are very annoying. Very.

But the seventh grade orientation slideshow enlightened us to what was really going on. It seems he has something in his brain called a prefrontal cortex, which is Latin for “is this thing on?”. Most adults you meet have smoothly functioning prefrontal cortexes, but all middle schoolers have crappy ones.

Wherever and whatever the prefrontal cortex is, it’s the least-developed part of the adolescent brain. That is great news, since it’s apparently in charge of these things:

*Self control

*Setting goals

*Prioritizing tasks

*Making sound judgements

*Planning and organizing multiple tasks

*Control of moods and impulses

*The ability to reason

*Determining right from wrong

*Determining cause and effect

That list, and the fact that Son Number One’s brain isn’t good at any of it, make so much sense now.

1) Lack of self control -

Me: “Don’t do that again.”

Him: [immediately does it again]

Me: “Now, you’re in trouble.”

Him: “Why?”

2) Bad at setting goals – That explains why his only discernable goal is to eat.

3) Bad at prioritizing, planning, and organizing multiple tasks – That explains why I saw him make a sandwich, put it in the dog’s bowl, kick off only one of his shoes, try to take a bite out of the remote control, and then put his sock in the fridge.

4) Bad at reasoning and determining cause and effect – See Number 1.

5) Bad at making sound judgements – Can’t wait for him to get his driver’s license!

6) Little to no control over moods and impulses – This explains why he’s like living with a schizophrenic spider monkey.

7) Determining right from wrong –

“Please don’t grab your little brother by the ear and neck and try to fling him down the stairs.”

“But, he breathed on my arm.”

(Also see Number 1, 4, 5, and 6.)

Unfortunately, just because we know why he’s so weird right now, doesn’t change the fact that we have to live with it. I guess all we can do is ride it out, and hope all the parts of his cortex, prefrontal and otherwise, start working correctly as soon as possible.

One thing, however, I’ve already learned from middle school – If things go south and his brain never gets any better at operating properly, all hope is not lost. He can always get a job as a city planner.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2017 Marc Schmatjen

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The DMV Again

Cascading tidal waves of dread washed over me, growing more powerful with each mile as I hurtled toward my doom… OK, that’s a bit much, but still… I was not looking forward to my destination. I was going to the DMV.

Like any American with a pulse and an IQ above room temperature, I avoid the DMV like the plague. Literally, I think if there is another outbreak of the plague, it will start at the DMV. Have you seen some of the people in line? Seriously.

But, alas, I had to take care of something that could not be handled through the mail. The last time I was forced by bureaucracy and bad luck to go to the DMV, I made an appointment. Appointments are really the way to go. Last time, I was in and out of the building in eleven minutes, and luckily, plague-free.

This time I could not make an appointment. This time I just needed to go and get it over with if it took all day. This time I would have to sit in the plague section and wait with the masses. This time was going to suck. I just knew it.

The DMV office opens at 8:00 A.M., but the school won’t let me drop the kids off any earlier than 7:30. Something about not having anyone ready to supervise them, blah, blah. At 7:30:01 I sped past all the idling cars to the front of the drop-off line, shoved the boys out of the car, threw their backpacks out the passenger window onto the pavement, and squealed out of the parking lot. I could see one of the teachers on parking lot drop-off duty in my rearview mirror, running after my car with her hands in the air shouting something. Probably, “Good luck at the DMV!” or something like that. A few of the parents parked in the drop-off lane gave me the good luck thumbs-up. At least, I think they were thumbs…

Who cares, I’m late.

With a string of broken and fractured traffic laws behind me, I wheeled into the DMV parking lot at 7:55 A.M. There were already twenty-two people standing in a line that stretched from the door all the way across the lot. Just for a split second I contemplated stepping on the gas and removing the back half of the line, but decided against it. I just parked instead.

The first guy in line up by the glass doors has a sleeping bag. He's a pro. Or homeless and just needs to use the restroom. Maybe there’s only twenty-one people in front of me?

I reluctantly take my place in line as plague victim number twenty-three.

More people arrive every minute.

The guy two people behind me is very chatty. It’s almost as if he doesn’t mind being here. He is obviously deranged.

In very un-DMV fashion, the doors open promptly at 8:00 A.M.
The line surges forward three feet.

We wait.

Chatty guy is a personal trainer. He’s excited about fitness and all things fitness-related. If that’s the case, why would he come to ground zero for the plague?

I am finally at the glass doors.
I make it to the front desk at 8:10 A.M. and get my number.
I am number B012.

Twelve. OK, twelve is not bad.

I sit down in the least plague-looking seat I can find.

Personal trainer guy is questioning people on what gym they go to. He is looking for new clients. Does he not know this is the DMV? Look around, dude. Most of these folks look like they can’t even spell gym. Or Jim. Or DMV. I don’t think “get a personal trainer” is high on their to-do list.
They are now serving G002.

G002?

I am B012. What does that mean?

I am momentarily distracted from my number confusion by the signs attached to the counter. All of them are missing letters. One says, “Please ot leai children unattended.” There is also “lease do e c ildren on counter,” and “as do o hld e ate d.”

That last one looks more like an eye chart now than a sign.

They are now serving B006 at Window 11. OK, I think that's good, we’re in the B numbers again. Although I don't really know how many people are between B006 and B012 with this system.
Personal trainer guy has found someone who has an actual gym membership.
We are now on B008. Excellent.

I need to use the restroom. Not excellent. I am scared to leave the lobby and miss my turn. I am also scared of the bathroom at the DMV, or Plague Central, as it’s probably known. I will hold it.

They just called another G number. What does that mean?

Personal trainer guy is explaining to gym membership guy that he doesn’t have any actual clients yet, but he does train his little brother. Hmm… I worked out with a family member once, too, but I never called myself a personal trainer.

They just called A001. What does that mean!? We went from G’s to A’s? I’m a B. How many people are in front of me? Are there people who were left over from yesterday that slept here in the chairs? That guy over there looks like he might have.

B009. OK, good. I think.

Family fitness guy is still working the room. He’s just begging for the plague. He still doesn’t have any clients besides his brother.

B010. OK, we’re staying in the B’s. This is good.

I really need to pee.

B011. Sweet, I’m next.

G008. Dammit!

Someone behind me just coughed. Plague alert! I’m moving.

A004. How in the hell does this number system wor…

B012.

That’s me!
Reporting to Window 7!

Here’s my forms. Here’s my check. Everything is in order. Boom! Three minutes at Window 7 and I’m outta here!

A mere twenty-eight minutes after the doors had opened, I walked out of the DMV plague-free (to the best of my knowledge), and with a solid lead on a new personal trainer with a very positive outlook on life.

Maybe the DMV isn’t so bad these days?

Well… let’s not get carried away.

See you soon,

-Smidge

Copyright © 2015 Marc Schmatjen

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Also visit Marc’s Amazon.com Author Page  for all his books. Enjoy!