Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the school parking lot…

Were manners always bad? Are we getting coarser by the day, or are things about the same as ten years ago, and twenty years ago, and fifty years ago? I’m not being coy, I really don’t know anymore. I guess some people were rude in the nineteenth century and eighteenth and so on. Maybe snobbier, maybe just rude. (I guess the Romans could be called rude, but not to their faces.)

So my wife took the kids to school today. We switch off, but she took them today, one to one school and one to the other; but you know all this, you know what it’s like to take kids to school, or anyone to anyplace. We all drive and carry things all day long, and never seem to catch up to ourselves. I’ve always thought a good title for something might be, “I’ve been up since six, and I haven’t done a thing.”

So my wife drops the first one off, and then rolls up the driveway to the second school, a routine we both know well. The school has things organized pretty well, with teachers and guards sending people this way and that, and it all looks Greek to me, but it not only seems to work, it works.

Two lanes of cars go into the lot on the right for junior high and high school, and it’s no big deal. Things move pretty well, and I’ve never understood antsy people anyway. Here’s one tiny thing that always bugs me; maybe it’s not so tiny.

Some parents don’t pull up the full fifty feet so others can pull in behind them, but stop at the first spot and hold everyone else up. You know the syndrome: “My child is more important than yours and can’t be expected to walk the extra distance. Plus, my life in general is more important than yours. Plus, you and I are definitely NOT in the world together, or on the same team, or people with a common agenda. Anything that inconveniences me is wrong. Anything than inconveniences you doesn’t even register.”

So today my wife pulls up on the right next to another car on her left, and suddenly the kid in the other car just whales her door open so hard and fast it smashes a pretty big dent in our car. Okay, no one hurt, a little lunkheaded, but kids are kids, right? Okay. (I’m here to tell you, by the way, that that is quite a dent. We have a Volvo SUV, so this is not a cardboard car, but that dent, in my wife’s door, looks like Hulk Hogan took a sledge hammer to it. I mean, two or three inches knocked in, the handle now at a twenty degree angle.)

All right, again, not the end of the world. Not even close. Accidents happen, right? In fact, it’s the exact opposite of a big deal. And then…

What does the kid in the other car do? Gets out, calm as a glass of tea, looks at it, and just walks away without saying anything. No hello, no goodbye, no “Oh, gee, I’m sorry. Are you all right?” No oops, no how do you like that. NOTHING. Just strolls aways and walks into the school.

Well. My wife gets out, and what does the other mother do? (This won’t be a great shock, will it? If a child behaves like that, where do you think she gets it?) She not only doesn’t apologize, or, again, say anything like, “I’m sorry, she was late, she had to go, are you all right, oh, my, look at your door, let’s pull over and exchange numbers.” No, none of that. What does she does? She reads my wife the riot act.

Now, my wife is not a shrinking violet, she’s tough as nails, and, although it was only quarter to eight, had already been drinking pretty heavily.

Just kidding, but my wife is not shy. And when the other woman started screaming my wife unrolled her own riot act and read that.

Well, I called the principal when my wife got home just to say, “Hey, this happened, I’m sure you get tugged a thousand different directions every day, but these folks were a little nuts, and it didn’t have to be that way.” If the girl (tenth grade, not a baby) had apologized, my wife would have said the same thing you would have. You smile and say, Oh, that’s all right, honey, go ahead, it happens, you should probably look around a little more next time, but no one’s hurt, and your mom and I will worry about it.”

I haven’t heard back from him yet, and no one from the other family has called. But their insurance company call my wife before and arranged to come by Monday and take a look.

Can you imagine? Isn’t that all rude to the point of looniness? How in God’s name do we ever expect tribes that have been warring for ten thousand years to bury the hatchet when American parents at a private school in Southern California can’t even be civil? How many kids are raised to not be responsible?

Questions that can never be answered. You know the rest: Hey, if this is the worst thing that ever happens, we’ll be the luckiest people in history. Still, though. Was any of this necessary?

You want to hear the best part, how weird life can be? You know what their name is? “McCarr.”

Seriously.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WALKED OUT OF BED TODAY AND NO ONE OPENED A DOOR INTO YOUR HEAD, AND THEIR KIDS DIDN’T PEE ON YOUR SHOES AND RUN AWAY LAUGHING… FOLKS, THE GAME’S OVER… AND SO IS OUR CIVILIZATION.