On The Warpath

I am on the warpath. Worse than that, I am two paces behind Rev. While I can occasionally be understanding about the myriad little screw-ups that populate everyone’s days, Rev has a streak of impatience a mile wide. If you are incompetent – and, worse, if you show no signs of caring that you are incompetent – well, you might as well change your name to Chicken Caesar Salad, because Rev will eat you for lunch. He is a lawyer by training, a corporate litigator, which means that he can slice you and dice you without ever raising his voice. And he’s a minister, so he’ll do it without swearing or breaking either any Commandments or The Golden Rule.

I, on the other hand, have no problem indicating through words (I majored in English and so am a walking thesaurus) and tone (hi: litigator!) just how much contempt I have for my hapless victim and all of his or her ancestors. If you’ve pushed me hard enough to get me to Go There, well, abandon all hope because the gloves come off pretty fast.

Normally, one of us is able to talk the other down off the ledge. Not today. Right now, both of us are looking at the Line That Was Crossed in our rear-view mirror. What has us heated up is the inability of the School Bus System to get our children home from school timely. By “timely,” I mean, before I get home from work.

Here’s the deal. Both Scooby and Doodle go to schools that dismiss at approximately 3:30. Doodle’s school is just under a mile away, an easy twenty-five minute walk, but far enough that he qualifies for bus transportation. Scooby’s school is much farther away. Rather than have the babysitter chase across the city to pick up the kids, we decided that this year she would simply meet the buses at the assigned stops near the house. Theoretically, the kids would get home within ten minutes of each other, at around 4:15. (Yes, folks, that means that it should take Doodle exactly the same amount of time (45 minutes) to ride home as it does Scooby, even though his school is a five minute drive away.)

I say should because, in reality, Doodle’s bus has never been on time. Some days it’s been five or ten minutes late – that’s to be expected in the first days of school. But for the past week or so, his bus has been, on average, an hour and a half late. Scooby’s has been late less often, but on days when they don’t get it right, she’s close to two hours late. Today, her bus pulled up at 6:10 PM.

Doodle’s school sends out an “all call”: Good afternoon, parents. We just want to let you know that if your child rides Bus Number X, it has been delayed, followed at some point by, Good afternoon, parents. We just want to let you know that Bus Number X has just left the school. This is delivered by the school secretary in a voice so chipper that it makes you want to crawl through the phone and punch her in the face. Worse, the calls go to your home phone – so you don’t get them because you are at the bus stop waiting vainly for the kid’s bus to come around the corner. Scooby’s school doesn’t even call.

This afternoon, for example, the babysitter arrived at Scooby’s bus stop (since Scooby’s only seven, meeting her bus is the priority; Doodle is old enough to walk up the street by himself) at 3:50, on the off chance that the bus might be early. She finally called me on my cell as I got on the train to come home – at 5:20. I arrived at the bus stop before Scooby’s bus even got there. Doodle’s bus beat me there by about five minutes.

Today’s The Bus Is Delayed call was delivered by Doodle’s principal, who recited the number for the transportation department and invited parents to call and complain.

Complain? Oh, honey, we’re past the complaint stage. We are on the warpath. Tomorrow, we will work our way up the chain of command, gathering names, until we get to the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, whom Rev knows personally and works with often, and the School Superintendent. That should take approximately two hours and twenty minutes. About the time that it took for the children to get home today.

It’s on.