Simulated Interest

If I'm really good at faking my own death, I figure the insurance money will keep us in pretty good stead for a few years...perhaps long enough to get massive amounts of plastic surgery and begin life over as a sassy, plucky administrative assistant who by dint of extraordinary powers of insight and intellect for someone who appears to be as young as she is, rises quickly through the ranks of the non-profit for which she works, attracting the attention of corporate gift-givers who offer her a position in their front offices which she takes, but only for enough time to amass a small fortune before leaving the hustle and bustle behind to live out the rest of her days traveling the world with the LOHL and only what will fit in a modestly-sized backpack.

Just a thought.

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So yesterday I was dropping Thing 1 off at the 9th-grade center (an assemblage of modular units, really) and I think if the woman behind had gotten any more mad at my NOT PASSING THE STOPPED SCHOOL BUS she might have exploded her head, all 'Scanners'-like.

See, the cars line up in the left lane (traffic only goes in one direction once you're on the grounds), the buses of course take the right to drop off the kids in the morning. If you're done dropping off your kid, but there's a stopped bus next to you, law says you can't go until they pull in the little "stop sign on a swing arm" thing. You're stuck there for the 2 minutes it takes for the kids to leave, then once the bus goes? You go too. Those are the rules.

Well, yesterday, I stopped in place even after Thing 1 was safety out, because there WAS A STOPPED BUS next to me. This is when some steering wheel pounding began. When that ol' stopped bus finally went, so did we, but don't you KNOW we promptly got stuck behind a line of cars waiting to take a left turn. This is when a bit of shouting started. Then, at just the right, at the exact moment when traffic broke a little and we could start moving up, don't you know that another bus pulled up next to us and extended the "thou shalt not pass" sign. Oh well. Here we sit for another 2 minutes...and it was during this time that she lost it. Oh.My.God. She was 1) pounding her steering wheel while 2) gesturing frantically at us with her lit cigarette while 3) shouting something I'm sure was less than complimentary and 4) beeping her horn. It was a moment of pure beautiful road rage, but dangit - it wasn't going to get me to PASS THE STOPPED BUS OF THE LEFT just because she had to be at the Lee Press-on Nails clinic in 26 minutes.

Truthfully, the frantic wavings became so comical, her horn bleats because so irritating, that I thought I'd play a little.

So I pulled up. A FOOT. She practically rammed her Ford F350 quad cab right up Tink's butt-bumper, such was her enthused reaction to movement. I pulled up a tiny bit again, and I see her behemoth lurch forward and jerk to an abrupt halt. One more squinch up, and the BUS DRIVER starts honking their horn, because it's clear we are ignoring the stop sign onna steek, endangering the precious cargo. This is when I turned around in the seat, did the "SEE?" jazz hands thing to lil' Miss Impatientpants, and thought about how nice it would be if her hair caught on fire.

Sometimes, I can be a little bit mean.

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Don't forget to email me if you want to do a holiday card exchange with friendly readers and bloggers. I think ti would be kind of fun, and would love for massive amounts of people (maybe 10?) to think so too. Thanks to all of you who have responded positively thus far; it's for YOU that I'm going to shop so very carefully at the Dollar Store Target this weekend for just the right card.

And that'll do it for me. I think I'll leave early today to make up for coming in late. Gotta balance out both ends of the workday, eh?