I fancy myself a nice person.  I’m a benefit of the doubt kind of girl, I am not one to raise my voice in public, I have an underdeveloped sense of road rage.  If you cut me off in line, I’ll typically just assume that you’ve got something fairly urgent going on.  I’m kind of a doormat, truth be told.

However, the onset of my advanced age has brought a few changes to my proverbial doorstep.  With who I am.  I went from having A chin hair to having ALL the chin hair.  My moustache doesn’t suck, either.  I’m getting Cherry Angioma all fucking over my body, and my hair is coming in gray.  ALL OF THEM.  You know how your hair looks if you go a few days without a shower?  Mine normally looks like that about 12 hours after my shower.  Now, it just always looks like that.  It’s stringy and greasy and motherfucking gray.  My 9-days-long-just-like-clockwork period is now a two-weeks-long-whenever-it-damn-well-feels-like-it period, and it usually feels like it right after I’ve blown the entire bank account on pregnancy tests.

Oh, and I suddenly have PMS for the first time in my life.

My old PMS manifested itself in nesting.  My house is never cleaner that the week and a half after I ovulate.  Lately, though, not so much.

I am blaming this shift in hormones and attitude for the fact that I tore some woman a knew asshole at my kids’ school today.  See, we have this drop-off/pick-up lane at the school that is a no-stop zone.  You can’t park there, you can’t walk there.  You drop your kids at the curb and move on.  No one ever follows this rule.

Of course, we’ve had 100 billion cm of snow, and the school district kind of forgot to plow the school before it started after winter break, so this already narrow, weird, straight uphill drop off zone is now a sheet of snowy ice and hardly wide enough for one car.

Naturally, some fucking moron decides that today, in the pouring rain, she should park her minivan half-way up the hill and go get her kids.  I could see my kids at the top on the curb, where they should be, waiting and getting soaked.  I waved, they waved, and they stayed put until that car moved and we could all get up the hill.  10 minutes later, after 10 cars piled up behind us blocking the main street and a city bus, she returned.  I was fuming.  She got in her car and tried to drive off, but what was in front of her?  ANOTHER parked car, a Ford sedan, this one at a 45 degree angle, so no one who didn’t know how to drive in the snow stood a chance of getting around it.  Minivan mom tried to inch her way around that car, but couldn’t figure it out, so she just got out of her car and climbed in the back with her kids.  After 5 more minutes, she got back in the drivers’ seat, tried again, and got around the Ford.  Eventually.  Very slowly.

The car in front of me goes around the Ford, no problem, and so did I.  (Nice tense switch there, huh?  I can writes good.)  The 10 more cars that are backed up on the street, and the now TWO city buses that are blocked start to move.  We pull up to our kids, and by now they are dripping and shivering.  They start getting in the car, and I’m pissed.  I look up and see some woman walk past me, grab her keys, and point them at the Ford.  The trunk pops open.  This is my moment.  Am I man or amoeba?  What do I do?

I rag out all of her ass is what I do.

I unroll my window, open the car door, take off my seatbelt, lean my head out of the door and turn it all the way around all Linda Blair style, and as loudly as I can I say to her back, “Are you aware this is a no parking zone?”  She turns around and puts her hand up, like “talk to the hand” puts her hand up, and that was it.  BOOM.

“Are you also aware that you held up TWENTY CARS and TWO CITY BUSES?  It took me TWENTY FIVE MINUTES to get around your car.  My kids are SOAKED.  This is a NO PARKING ZONE.  Do not ever, ever park here again.”

She says Sorrrrrrrryyyyyyy.  I say “DON’T PARK HERE.”  She starts saying something that begins with “I just…” and a gave her a nice, loud whatever and drove away.

I have never, ever done anything even close to that before in my whole freaking life.  I don’t even know who I am anymore.  The worst part?  I wrote the PTA president to bitch that there is never anyone out there directing traffic even though we have an entire committee dedicated solely to directing traffic, and guess what?  I’ve officially unquit the PTA.  I’m now directing traffic two mornings and two afternoons a week and organizing the parents who I will force to help me with this.

Seriously, do you want my uterus?  THREE TIMES NOW, it’s landed me a spot on the PTA.  Fucker hates me, and I’m breaking up with it.

I am considering homeschooling my kids. Like, seriously considering it. Mas Younon just rolled over in his yet unused grave.

See, here’s my thing: I’m not the world’s biggest fan of the concept homeschooling. I’ve nothing against it, per se, I just really want the public education system to work. I think it’s important that kids learn how to sit at a desk in a room full of other people and work (that skill is 99.96% guaranteed to come in handy later.) I like that feeling of new school clothes, that smell of fresh paper, the field trips and the sack lunches. It’s childhood, yo.

I swore I’d never homeschool my kids. I don’t exactly like them enough to spend every day with them am NOT a trained professional. I don’t cut my own hair, and I don’t attempt to teach. But, honestly, after the events of this school year, I am changing my mind.

I know that I was really lucky to fall into the school I did in Denver. I choiced OUT of the rich, white, uppity school and choiced INTO the 75% free and reduced lunch, 30/30/30 racial split, 10% special ed, median income, low-to-average test scores school. This? Could have sucked. This? Did not suck in any way.

That school tried. The staff and parents worked together, and very hard, to create something amazing. Our school sits year after year on the chopping block in Denver Public Schools because attendance is low and the space is unused. Why? Because we refuse to give up the 3 special ed classrooms for more average students. We LIKE those students. We like all the diversity. It creates well-rounded humans. We avoid getting closed year after year because our poor, ghetto, half empty school crushes the competing schools test scores year after year. Our Bully Prevention System (PE Ace’s) has been featured on every local news channel in Denver. Our PTA raises something in the neighborhood of $50 thousand dollars annually to hand over to the principal so we can keep para-professionals in the classrooms, so every child gets art and music, so PE is an every day class, not just once or twice a week, so we can devote time to getting Lights On After School Grants to provide free or amazingly low cost after school activities like science, band, etc to EVERY CHILD who wants it.

We fought for that school. For the staff. For the community. We believed in something, and we made it happen. It’s happened, yo. This year, the school is at maximum enrollment. The snotty, rich, mostly white families are bringing their kids in, which sucks but makes raising $50K a little easier. And our community deserves that. The kids who don’t have, who can’t have, their parents still give time, which is JUST as valuable, and the parent who do have and can have give a little money, too. And that school is a home for people. All the people, not just one select group.

There has not been one incident of playground bullying in something like 10 years there. There are no violent incidents, there are no parents who don’t know what’s going on in the classrooms. That school breathes together. Problems are tackled head on, and even the most troubled students are helped to find some one thing that fills their void in the school day.

We got all this from a city public school who is in a budget deficit of $50 something thousand dollars a year. Who can’t afford the paper for teachers to make photocopies. Who was told 5 years ago that gym, art and music were being cut.

We. Showed. Them.

And then I move to an affluent suburb of a damn near socialist country. Everyone has health care. The schools have everything they need and more. And my damn kid gets beat up 4 times in one school year. My son who was 1st chair in the orchestra since grade 2 can’t play in the band until grade 7 here. He can’t even TRY OUT. There are no after school activities. I have never once received a letter from the teachers filling me in on what my sons are learning.

I have been choked to death for cash, however, which I have given and then sat in a room listening to parents debate whether to spend that cash on board games or new coolers.

The difference? No one is fighting for anything. I am surrounded by a bunch of people who assume this is owed to them, or who assume that their job is black and white. I’m not saying this is a Canadian thing, because reading your responses in the last post, I see that this is fairly universal. What does your PTA do for you? What extra mile has your school taken for your child? Apparently, most people answer none.

Dude, I’m sorry, but that is not okay in my book.

Am I a trained teacher? No. Did I even bother going to college? Um, no. But I am smart, and I know how to read, and I am capable of learning. I can teach these kids, I know I can. I am working on algebra right now with them, just for fun. Why? Because I don’t have 30 other kids hollering at me and I can take the time to see that 2of3 is already multiplying at 8, which means he can divide, too, which means he can DO ALGEBRA. It’s not rocket science, it’s just working with my child’s abilities and strengths.

And so, I am considering homeschooling them. I know that I am blessed beyond all compare to be able to stay home with them, for the very idea of this to be even possible, and so while I can, I may. But I feel like maybe I’m missing something, or overlooking something big here. The socialization? The learned ability to co-exist with others, to respect authority? The scheduling skills? I don’t know.

I would honestly really appreciate your input here.

PS: There’s still time to put your name in for a free school supply pack from EZ School Supplies. Just sayin’.