The last part of this post is not true, but man, I wish it was.

When I arrived back home after dropping the kids at school this morning, I plopped myself down on the sofa and let out a long sigh of contentment. Gary, the fat one, looked over at me and said, "I know what you mean."

We high fived and he took a nap, the first quiet nap he's had in the last 9 days.

It's 9:30 in the morning and the nice thing is my day is only going to get better than it has been since I woke up at 7am.

Max does this charming thing where he decides he doesn't want to go to school. It starts out as grumbling, "You know, I'm not a big fan of the school thing...." Then, when I tell him, "I know, but everyone has to go to school." He moves along to the more dramatic, "I hate school and whoever invented it should burn in the fiery depths of hell."

When that doesn't clue me into how serious he is, he begins making a terrible sound with his mouth. I would rather listen to a dying goat than my son making that sound with his mouth. And at 7:30 in the morning, that sound makes me want to hurl myself out the second story window.

After telling him he was going to school, sounding like a keening elephant and wearing his pajamas, please, feel free. But buddy, we've had 8 full days of intense togetherness and you are going to school today. I'll take you there naked if I have to.

In the end it took two threatening phone calls from Logan and a "call" to the "principal" to get the dying elephant out of bed and to the car. He was wearing clothes, thankfully, but was making that terrible sound with his mouth for almost the entire drive.

He got out of the car and grumbled his way over to the school.

Maddie is a safety squad kid, this means she helps kids safely cross the street using the power of anxiety. It's like a superpower.

So she watches for cars, makes sure no one is turning left off the busy main road onto the side street and starts making the "Go On!" sign with her hands. Max begins crossing the street, floating across on the power of Madison's anxiety.

And just as he's crossing someone comes barreling down the main road and starts turning left onto the side street, trying to miss the oncoming traffic.

Luckily Maddie's anxiety, stopped the car from running over the kids in the crosswalk. But while the man in the car waited for the kids to get out of the crosswalk he stopped oncoming traffic and wildly gestured and yelled inside his car at the kids in the crosswalk. Because they had the nerve....to cross...the street....to get to school....

And something inside of me broke right then.

I stepped on the gas, chased the man down the street, pulled up right next to him and made ferocious eye contact. Then! I pulled the wheel over and rammed my car into his, knocking him off the road. I pulled him from his car, and very reasonably explained that pedestrians have the right of way, and if you're driving around a school around drop off time, you should really try to be aware and patient about getting around...so you know, you don't kill a child.

Then I stood there and made the noise Max likes to make with his mouth at him, until he cried and begged for mercy and promised to never try to run little kids over in the cross walk ever again. But I kept right on bleating like a goat at his head. Until Max came running over from the school and said, "Oh My God that is the most annoying sound on earth. Please, please stop."

My work there was done.

Comments

[mpotter]

oh my! i've GOT to hear this sound.
hilarious ending. too bad it couldn't be true. what a schmuck he was.

[Sarah @ BecomingSarah.com]

What a jerk. Seriously. Too bad the last part didn't really happen.

[darcy]

That is really funny. I mean I am laughing my ass off because I have a 7 year old sleeping on the couch next to me sick with a cold, but I never know if she is actually sick, or just sick of school and wants to watch Ellen with mommy.

[jen]

"...the nice thing is my day is only going to get better than it has been since I woke up at 7am."

Change the time to 6 a.m. and you have read my mind this morning. It started with the fact that 6 a.m. is a full hour later than I should have been getting up, continued with a homeless person rebuffing my offer of a granola bar since I had no cash, and ended when I asked a collegue if he had a nice weekend and his response was he spent the weekend in California. For. his. mother's. funeral. I mean from there my morning could only get better.

[stevie]

This is the first thing that made me smile today because I KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MEAN. Thanks for this. I needed it.

[dewshane]

Puhleaze record this sound that Max makes and share it with us. I need to experience the most annoying sound in the world. Until now I thought it was the sound Jim Carrey made in Dumb & Dumber.

What a complete and utter ahole that guy is! If you see him again maybe you can make him be nice with the power of your anger.

[aimee]

Thank goodness the world has you and Maddie who can save us all and stop bad things from happening with your power of worry! :)

[Jen]

I'm a long-time lurker, but I have to know - which part of this wasn't true? Please tell me it was just the part at the very end when Max realized how annoying the noise really is. Please let the rest of it be true.

[tutugirl1345]

Too bad there wasn't a cop around, cause they really will pull people out of their car and give them massive tickets for doing shit like that.

[alli]

Sadly, I witness situations like this almost weekly...I am the crossing guard at one of our elementary schools and it just pisses me off how rude people can be. Um, when you see me in the crosswalk holding up a stop sign AND wearing a fugly reflective orange safety vest AND crossing children to school - YOU NEED TO STOP! It's amazing to me that it is the same people day after day that go through this intersection and they know there is a school nearby, but they somehow get so frustrated and surprised (?) when they see kids crossing the street. Leave your house 10 minutes earlier so you can get your Starbucks and get to work on time, damn it.

[jen]

thank you... i needed that laugh this am...

[Paula]

Do you mean to tell me that I'm not the only one that thinks about following people like that and giving them a piece of my mind?

[JP]

oh, but how the ending of the story made me laugh. I don't even care how true it is (was).

[Katrina]

ROFLOL!!!!! Oh Dear now my family thinks I'm even nuttier as I sit here giggling to myself in front of the computer.

[Kathy]

LOL! Someone else says "fugly" lol! Oh, how I wish this were true. Like the time someone sped through a school zone and I yelled, "Slow the he!! down you f*&^%ing idiot!" in front of my children (not a proud mommy moment lol)!

[Amy]

I think we should always be able to add a paragraph to bad things that happen. Would make life so much easier.

The school drop off zone is a whole conversation for another day. But I'm telling you, if I could add a paragraph to the end of the story.....well, it would be so much better.

(you should record the voice and make him listen to it....maybe he doesn't know the sound could dissolve pieces of coal)

[Bella]

The dropping off things sounds just like my school. People get really bad road rage in regards to dropoff and pickup. My pet peeve is when parent's stop, block traffic and then let their children out not on curbside. Are they IDIOTS?!!!!!

[Sarah]

Oh! Oh! Laughter tears! You're killing me.

Would it be wrong of you to YouTube the awful donkey sound? I must know, even if it will haunt my nightmares.

[BOSSY]

That was the best movie that ever won an Oscar.

[ellen]

Thank you! After a really crappy day I finally had a good laugh. (Glad the kids were safe!)

[carole]

My favorite description of "the sound" was how it made you feel "...like you wanted to rip your uterus out and shove it in his mouth," or something to that effect. I can relate.

[carole]

oh, and I forgot to add: shut up, I've got twins. Twice the love, twice the volume...

[amy]

You GO MAMMA BEAR! Need more of your kind in our school lane dammit.

[Nancy R]

I'd have paid good money to see that.

[Muscat]

That was hilarious! There are about a million drivers around here I would like to do that to. great post.

I'm delurking after 2 years of compulsive following to be a total ass and ask if it's possible that Max is being bullied at school. because projecting issues onto my own children, clearly, is not enough.

I was always too ashamed to admit to my parents what a total looser I was in the eyes of my peers.

[Lin]

Here's what I do when some random moron (in a car) does something that I think is really dangerous. I call 911, give 'em the license plate number and report them as a suspected drunk driver. I mean why else would anyone do such a dangerous thing unless they're high on something.

I know, I know that one shouldn't tie up the 911 system with some crank call, but, when someone is doing something as potentially horrific as that driver, they need to be stopped and I'm just the gal to do it.

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