My son started Kindergarten last year, and in picking him up from school, I’ve overheard some peculiar conversations. One recurring conversation revolves around where the school buses park, and why my fellow parents are angry about this. I wish I were kidding.
You see, directly to the left of the building which my son comes out of is the bus pull-in area. It has large, rectangular blocks painted on it – all of which have the dimensions of a bus. Imagine that. I’m fairly sure that means that the buses are supposed to park there. Months of research, conducted when picking my son up, has shown me that I’m onto something here: the buses always pull in to this area to pick up the bus riders.
This is a problem, however, because parents who pick up their kids want to park there. Now, I know what you’re thinking: but the buses have to park there! If there are vehicles parked there, how are they supposed to do so? I’m in agreement with you here, but apparently, the bulk of my fellow parents are not. Every day, there are at least 5 or 6 cars parked on the bus lot, perpendicular to the painted rectangles. Almost every day, a teacher or school administrator comes out and tells the cluster of parents: “If you’re parked there, you’re going to have to move. The buses need in there.”
What follows is… I’m not really sure. A communal act of idiocy? Rather than seeing the logic behind what the person in charge is saying – hi, that area is for the buses only, as they are large and cannot park elsewhere, whereas you can park along the street right next to the school – they instead began ranting and raving. “Well, I can’t believe this.” “I have to move my car? But I’m here to pick my kid up!” “They can’t wait 10 minutes?” “Wow, I don’t know what her problem is.”
I just don’t understand the sense of entitlement on display here. I’m a parent. I have to pick my kid up. And you know what? I park along the street, as do the vast majority of the parents. Sure, I might have to walk a block or so, but I don’t exactly see that as unreasonable. There’s plenty of parking available, these people just don’t want to bother with walking a little bit.
It could be worse, I suppose; all of the people who park in the bus lot could just stop in the middle of the street. Last week some lady parked in the middle of the street for 10 minutes, waiting for her kid to come out, and then got angry when a bus pulled up behind her and the driver honked at her.
Ah, humanity. Sometimes you baffle me.
I love people like that haha.
You said it though; people feel a sense of entitlement. Once someone has that in their head it’s really hard to change them and their ways.
I have two personal favorites.
The first is the marked police cruiser… sorry, marked police ~supervisor’s~ cruiser that parks right in front of the “No Parking – School Bus Loading Zone” sign on the street. Not only does he park where nobody else is allowed to park, he also places his small kindergarten-aged child in the front seat of the cruiser, without a booster seat. (The law here says that children aged eight and under and 80lbs or less must be in a booster seat.)
The second is being in the school bus loading / unloading loop – in my school bus, with students on board, waiting for a yard-duty teacher to come out so that the students could unload – and getting honked at by a parent in a car. Silly me, it seems that my school bus was in their way.
Sorry, just because the vanity license plate on your minivan says “MOMSBUS” does not qualify you to use the school bus loop.
How dare you call these parents idiotic! They just take proper care of their children: Their little feet with expensive little shoes may in no case touch the dirty ground of the sidewalk longer than neccessary! There is so much danger outside of the school buidling (kidnappers, cigarette smoke, drive-by-shootings, terrorists etc.) that the passage from the building to the car absolutely needs to be kept as short as possible! Those parents are just trying to protect their children as good as they can and they will park in the bus area until someone invents direct-house-to-school-beaming. *irony off*
(Btw: Those kids are called “Generation Backseat” here. I still remember clearly that -back in those good old 80s it was a real highlight when a parent of my friends came to Kindergarten or elementary school by car to pick us up. We always persuaded those poor parents to transport more kids than the car normally should. So we sometimes ended up with two kids on the floor and three in the trunk of the car (clearly irresponsible but very funny for us). We also absolutely didn’t want to walk home too – But we had to most of the time. )