It’s 8:23 on a Wednesday morning. If you walk fast enough you can still make it to the other side of campus for your first-period class and avoid collecting your second tardy of the week. Calculating how much time you have before the pledge and morning announcements finish, you start to become optimistic. “Just speedwalk,” you think to yourself.
Then, just when your car is about to get the chance to pull up right in front of the school, you realize that none of the cars in front of you are moving. At first, you’re confused and then you understand what has happened. Some 4’11” junior-high student is taking his or her own sweet time getting out of the car.
They get out of the passenger’s seat and go to the back seat to take their backpack AND their instrument AND their lunch bag, which is somehow bigger than their backpack and instrument combined. Then they decide that this is the perfect time for them to have a full-blown conversation with their parent about how he or she doesn't want to go to school today. Said parent then gets out of the driver’s seat and walks over to the other side of their car. They then proceed to hug and kiss their kid, reassuring him or her that he or she will shine and shimmer on the 10-point quiz in 7th-grade math.
You check the time. All of a sudden, it’s already 8:25, and morning announcements are over. You have officially been marked late for the day.
Now, I understand that I could simply just get out of the car wherever I am and walk the rest of the way. However, there is an issue with that too. Even if I were to speedwalk, my speedwalking will never beat the speed of the car. Plus, with my luck, the cars would start moving again the second I shut my car door.
There are so many ways to avoid this. Firstly, if, for whatever reason, you have thirty different things to carry, please just sit in the back. You can organize all your stuff and get ready to get out before you reach your turn to exit. Next, all “important” conversations that must be had can be had while coming up the hill. Once you’ve reached the top, though, it’s time to start the final part of the car ride: the goodbye.
All kissing and hugging and everything can happen at home or in the car. Once the Admin-building is in your sights, start saying your goodbyes to whomever it is that you’re going to see again in less than seven hours. Do whatever you would like to do in the car, but, and I cannot stress this enough, once you get to the front of the line and your car is parked in front of the school, you have fifteen seconds to hop out and vanish into the breezeways. So take whatever it is you need to take, get out of the car, shut the door, and keep that line moving!
