Mother of the Year

Yes, that title is sarcastic. Today, as every Friday, the students left at 2:00 P.M. (The teachers then have planning for the remaining 90 minutes.) As my partner and I were standing on the street stopping traffic for pedestrians, wearing our ugly safety vests and holding aloft our stop signs, a large group of parents approached coming from the school. However they weren't quite at the corner, and we'd had the cars stopped for some students who were now out of the street. So my co-worker asked the first mom, "Are you crossing this way?" and he gestured toward the street. He meant, "Shall we continue to stand here in the street, or are you turning the corner?"

She said, in a very loud voice, "I don't have to hurry up for you. You can't tell me what to do!" Then she stepped into the street and walked toward me.

Silly me...I thought I'd clear it up and said, "We were just wondering if you were turning the corner, so we could let the cars go on."

Then I got blasted, "You can't tell me what to do. Just shut up B*&@# and get out of my way." I looked at her, and said, "Who do you work for?" I don't know why I said that, or anything at all! She shouted at me again pointing out that she didn't have to do anything I said and I should just shut the H*&& up...Ooookaay. So I did.

All the other parents around us just stared in amazement. I felt really sorry for her child. She is in Kindergarten. I know this little girl because she is in my fun Friday class. Whew. I was hoping that maybe by the time this little kid is in fourth grade, her mom will have insulted some really big guy and he'll have punched her lights out.

We went back in and the principal was out in the foyer, so we started to describe the woman, and the principal laughed. She knew exactly who we'd met. It seems that we're just the next two in a long line of people who have been shouted at and cursed out. Just that very day, the principal had mailed the letter that was the first step in getting a restraining order against this parent being allowed to put foot on the school grounds. This was the warning letter that if any more complaints were filed against her by employees--she was done.

So, that solves my fourth grade problem. She'll never make four more years without yelling at anyone, I'm sure of it. Probably not even four more days. Or even four hours.