Some people are injured on the battlefield, others in the line of domestic duty. I pulled up lame after Back to School Night.
My first mistake was going at the scheduled time. I should have known that all the parking spaces near the school would be filled an hour before the event. Even so, I hadn’t counted on being the very last car, in the very last space, in the very last parking area. I missed first and second “period” walking the half-mile to the school. At least it wasn’t raining.
My second problem is that the buildings are so big that mere adults can’t cross them in the allotted time.
Our middle school is literally a quarter of a mile from end to end, and our high school isn’t much better. The measly four minutes we are given between destinations don’t come close to being enough time.
And these halls are not filled with young people moving swiftly. Instead, they are clogged with middle-aged people, stumbling around, squinting at maps not made for middle-aged eyes. When you finally do arrive, huffing and puffing, halfway through the teacher’s presentation and tell them you are so-and-so’s mother, they give you a knowing smile, as if to say, “Of course you are; he always arrives late and out of breath, too.”
My third problem is that starting with middle school, our children’s schedules are so convoluted that no parent can hope to manage their complexity. “A modified block six-day rotation over five days.” All we can do is blindly follow the course they have charted for us.
But the buildings cause confusion of their own. They are old with newer wings added so the floors don’t always go through. The numbers restart arbitrarily, and there is one hallway in the high school I can never find my way out of.
I think the place was designed by M.C. Escher.
The net result is that I gain a healthy respect for my son’s sheer accomplishment of getting through his day, and I’m not even carrying my son’s backpack which must weigh 40 pounds.
Some teachers actually try to tell us something in their brief 15 minutes, but it’s hopeless. I’m so busy catching my breath and squinting sideways at my map for wherever I’m due next, that I can’t pay attention to a word they say.
I want to stop at the door and mention just one thing about my child to his teacher. Unfortunately, I am stuck behind another parent who is wasting the teacher’s time.
If he doesn’t stop yakking about his little darling I won’t get a chance to talk about mine before I must dash for the next class. The selfishness of some people!
“Lunch” is a frantic affair of trying to weave through a cafeteria filled to bursting with people standing and yakking. Some of them are even friends of mine, but right now all they are is obstacles on an endless course. I am trying to find the table to sign up for the PTA, but I can’t find anything and the cacophony is giving me a headache.
Mercifully, this year we only have one child in this building so my husband serves as my Seeing Eye dog, leading me from place to place. That’s good because I am hopelessly lost and have given up even trying to figure out where I am. Also, as the night wears on, I am limping more and more, so that I am later and later to each successive class, and whatever my children’s teachers are hoping to communicate is missed completely.
They say these nights are, “to foster communication between home and school.” Unfortunately for the school, what it fosters instead is a kind of war-time camaraderie between me and my child.
“How do you ever get to the Band Room on time?” I ask him later.
“I don’t,” he replies. “Now maybe you understand those notes they sent home?” And it’s true, now I do.
Finally, we are done. My head is aching, I can hardly breathe, and I will be limping for months from the plantar fasciitis it turns out this night has given me. But at least I can go home for another year.
My husband’s car is even farther than mine, so he can’t give me a lift, but if I take my time limping, at least I might miss the traffic jam of everyone else trying to get away.
Of course it starts to rain.
