Tonight I got to go back to junior high. After work.
It was for the after-school activity sign up. “Arrive early to get the best spot” the flyer said. And so, with 10-yo in tow, I went back to junior high to sign up for “The Harry Potter Club” and “Drama and Theater.” Not that we need more drama.
With sign-ups at 6, we arrived, smartly, I thought, at 5:30. And I’m thinking, “Not this year b——-. I’m not getting shut out this year.”
There were 50 other people there. Probably thinking the same thing.
And one screaming baby.
I signed my name on the line and got number 44. 44, I’m number 44. I’m sure to get those classes.
Like Charlie Brown hoping for a Valentine.
After signing my name, I got in line to wait. And wait. And wait. People were standing in line texting, checking their phones, fanning themselves with the sign up sheet.
That’s a bad sign.
Then the baby started. She ran away from her mother – who, I might add, had two other children in tow, each one pulling on her arm. The baby plopped down in the middle of the snaking line of sweating parents and started to bawl. Mouth open, red, runny eyes, the whole thing.
Oh yeah. That’s me.
“Is it starting to move?” someone asked.
“Uh. Think so.”
Then, no lie, one mom comes in with her kid, says she’s not waiting and drops said kid, the check and sign up sheet with a friend – two spots ahead of me.
Not that it bothers me. Just sayin’.
That kid better not be signed up for Harry Potter.
It’s getting hot in here.
With the line not moving, we are forced to look at the 6th grade art work on the walls. I know that’s mean, but they didn’t have to stand in line after working all day, so, yeah. (They were good, for the record.)
Finally, the line starts to move. We make it to the desk. “Which activities?” the woman who runs this particular PTA program every year asks.
“Potter and Drama.”
“Right over there.”
My heart pounds. I scribble out a check and scamper out of the cafeteria, through the snake of sweating parents.
Who, I might add, should’ve gotten there at 5:30.
But I’m glad they didn’t.
Hang On Mom 