A ghost from the past recently revisited me. The kiddie carpool. My daughter asked me if I could do her carpool run for my grandson and his schoolmates as she had another commitment.. It was about 40 years since I had done a carpool and I stepped up to the plate. However I did not realize I would be buying into Uber carpool driver abuse.
I was to have picked up several grade school kids and transport them uneventfully to school.
My first stop, Jeremy’s house. (Names have been changed to protect myself). Jeremy’s mother apparently was a woman a bit obsessive compulsive about being on time. She comes over to my window and confronts me saying I’m five minutes late. I tell I took a wrong turn en route to her place and she bleats out, “Doesn’t your vehicle have a navigational system.?” I want to tell her, “No. And it also took me a couple of minutes to hand crank up the engine.” But I opt for a simple “I’m sorry.” That feels safer with Madam Cruella de Vil.
Next stop Richard. But where is Richard? I beep my horn a couple of times and eventually Richard makes his sortie. I don’t believe he hears my horn. Richard cannot possibly hear anything since he has earbuds glued to his ears, listening to loud music. I can clearly hear drums on steroids, blasting away. I feel like doing an experiment; make a small detour and pass the nearby cemetery and see what happens.
The next stop is Adam’s house. This kid is actually OK. It’s just that for some reason his mother insists on loading him up with books, lunch, gym gear, and other paraphernalia that she attempts to stuff into this large knapsack. She presumes that I am driving a U-Haul. I try to persuade her at the top of my lungs that there is absolutely no room for this stuff. Only Richard, The Earless, is oblivious to the discussion.
I exit the car, and after some effort Adam’s mother and I manage to stuff his freight into the trunk. I’m glad that we aren’t travelling along a major highway this morning. Otherwise I would be obligated to pull over at a scale stop.
Finally we pick up Shirley, our back-seat driver. This kid presumes that I have no concept of how to get to my son’s Toronto school. She figures I live in North Bay. I just drove down 250 kilometres this morning for the pleasure of doing this carpool.
Shirley is indispensable. She not only insists that I go left, go right, cut through the shopping plaza near the Walmart. She also tells me when I’m going too fast.
Jeremy jumps in and says I’m going too slow “like a snail, we’ll be late,” he whines. The two of them argue over the sweet strains of Richard’s vignettes of jackhammer sounds..
By succumbing to Shirley’s navigational directions, I end up on a side street behind this great big school bus. The bus, stop lights flashing, naturally is in the process of embarking about three hundred kids.
Jeremy, fearing we’ll be late, slaps his head. I hold onto my head, fearing what his mother will want to do with it. My only hope is to go through Adam’s gear. Chances are he probably has a makeshift helicopter inside. Or maybe even a makeshift school. With teachers. Maybe there’s even an embassy in there. I’ll seek asylum.
The school bus leaves. We continue our trek.
Suddenly a squabble breaks out in the car. Jeremy says, “Adam’s lunch stinks.” This is followed by, “Adam just pinched me.” I slow down to and I consider driving into the strip plaza nearby but I’m not sure I could bear the consequences of being confronted for being late, by Jeremy’s mother.
We soon cruise into the school lot as the bell rings. At least I think I hear bells.
The kids pile out. Adam says, “What about my ‘knapsack’?” I look around but I don’t see a forklift I can borrow. Using my limited knowledge of Archimedes’ principles, I pry the crate out of the trunk. My physics knowledge is quite limited, as my aching back tells me.
Later in the day my daughter asked me how the carpool went. I thought to myself no good deed goes unpunished. I’m not sure who came up with that quote. But it would not surprise me if it originated after the author did a carpool. .