Thursday, 28 November 2013

THE SCHOOL RUN ......


Ladies and gentlemen of the school run, I know Louis Armstrong once sang we have all the time in the world.

So why are you so intent on wasting yours on getting that perfect parking space?

 School doesn’t start till 8.45 but come 8.15 every weekday morning there they all are. Those hallowed vehicle bays nearest the school occupied already before the cleaners have even finished putting their Hoovers away.

Parents are stood in the bus shelter by the school gates chuffing on fags like fifth formers behind the bike sheds. Gossiping and moaning as their bored kids fiddle with the car till they get annoyed and bellow at the troublesome youngster to get out and stand with them for the next half hour.

You’d think there would be a reason for this early arrival at school to bag that first class parking slot, a quick getaway to work or another sibling’s school drop off maybe. However quite often the clique marking this prime territory in a cloud of smoke are still there  for at least half an hour after I’ve passed them on my return from doing the morning shop.

This reluctance to go home in the morning is then completely juxtaposed in the afternoon by the same crowd for whom now the need to be the first away when school finishes is so great that come 2pm there they’ll all be again. Sitting in their motors , idly flicking through newspapers , magazines or playing with their mobiles a full hour and twenty minutes before the pips go just  so junior doesn’t have to trudge too far at the end of his/her tiring day.

Have these people really got nothing better to do, I may not have the most whirlwind social life in the world but I’d rather be elsewhere getting something done in that expanse of time than sitting in an automobile updating my social media for the sake of parking a little further away.

 Those hour and 20 minutes if you add them up over a week comes to 6 hours 40minutes by the way.

So yes please be smug about your quick getaway but remember it’s completely pointless when you realise that the time you wasted sitting in your motor comes in at just over a school day!

 GIRL FROM THE NECK DOWN COLUMN - MEDWAY MESSENGER

 

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