My two cents on...mini van driving Catholic school moms - the sequel:

I didn't think I was going to have to revisit this topic, because I thought I had made myself perfectly clear the first time about how I felt regarding these certain moms.  I have even mentioned them subsequently throughout a few other topics along the way, to pay tribute to their stupidity, but I have had a few choice encounters over the last few weeks that have really tweaked my hot button, so I felt the need to say something.  Let's learn our lesson this time, shall we, so we can all move on and work on being loving examples of great parents to our little ones, so they can grown up to be all they are meant to be and more.


We'll start with the most heinous story first.  I was running a little (ok, a lot) late dropping The Noise off to school a few weeks ago, and when you're late, they won't even let you go to the normal car line, you have to go to the other side of the school.  To the office.  Boo...Bad girl.  I mean we were only like, one minute late, maybe ten, but who's counting.  Anyway, the parking on that side is really narrow, and is flanked on one side by diagonal parking spaces which butt up to the passenger side of the cars that are pulled up dropping kids off.  Let's just say whoever's idea it was to make this a drop off zone needs to not reproduce, or work with children, ever.  So she's was getting out of the car, on the passenger side, she kissed Little, then opened the front passenger door to lean in and kiss me (awwww).  As she leaned in, a car in one of the parking spots started to back out.  In true idiotic form, and since she was driving a Mercedes, God forbid she looked behind her.  She backed into my daughter!  Granted, she wasn't going fast enough to actually hurt her, but she bumped her with the back of her car.  It was church day, and if The Noise had been any later, she would have been in trouble with the priest (even worse than just being regular late), so I laughed it off with her and sent her on her way.  At this point, you would think this mom would have jumped out of her car, come running over to my car, "I'm sorry" flying, and made sure everything was ok.  Nope.  She just sat there for a minute, looked back at me through her rearview, waved her hand and said "SORRY!" and then drove off.  I know she knew she hit my kid, because I saw her face when she bumped her, then she of course had to pull her car forward to un-pin The Noise from between my car and her car.  Had she not driven off as quickly as she did, and had I not been in utter shock for the moments that I was, I believe I may have gone to jail, had to find another school for my child, and may have had to move to a new city all in the same day.  I had to sit in the parking lot for about 20 minutes after she drove off just to regain my composure before I came unglued.  She better be glad I haven't seen her in the car line since, or we would have exchanged some serious words.


I then encountered my arch-nemesis driver yesterday morning, and I have been fuming over it ever since.  This time it happened in person.  She's the one with the zebra hair and ridiculous makeup who thinks she is so much better than everyone else, and the one who walks up in front of all the other moms to get her kid from the car line.  Just to give you a little background, she is a stay at home wife of a very well off husband.  I think he's very nice.  I've only met him a few times, but he seems quite personable.  She, on the other hand, is just a pretentious snob and seems to think there's something about her that's more special than the rest of us average moms who can only afford to buy our kid's clothes at Target and get our hair cut at Supercuts.  They have a few kids, but their one daughter is in The Noise's class.  She's a snob too.  Truly like mother like daughter.  It's sad really.

So, back to yesterday, I dropped The Noise off in the car line.  I made sure to avoid any other "drivers" at all costs, since I was already in a foul mood, and really wasn't ready for a mom throwdown at 7:45am.  It was "let's make a budget" day, to see if Adrian can be a stay at home mom anymore and my reason for stopping into the office was to make sure I didn't owe the school any money before the end of the school year.  Lucky for The Noise, I had pre-planned to leave the car that morning and had at least put on real pants in place of my pajamas, but I was still just slightly under-dressed in my dirty t-shirt, head band, unbrushed hair, no makeup, bags under my eyes and lack of coffee attitude.  The last person I wanted to run into was HER.  The one I would have hurled a rock at on my David day.  The one who looks me up and down any chance she gets.  The one who I have daydreams about starting a real high school "meet me in the parking lot after the bell"  fight scene with.  It looked like she was on her way to the gym (because don't all stay at home moms have time for the gym?), and of course, even not being dressed up, she was still in her perfect mom state of perfectness.  Hair perfectly placed in a perfect ponytail, matching sweats, new running shoes, with the perfect pair of matching ankle socks.  Shoot, I can't even find socks that match each other, much less match my shoes.  She immediately looked at me, gave me the once over, and looked back at the secretary and kept talking.


Here's where the situation got ugly.  My blood's gonna boil just thinking about it.  My daughter goes to Catholic school, duh.  And as if the tuition, fees, cost of books, uniforms, field trips, supplies, events, parties, yearbook and other miscellaneous "things" wasn't enough, each family is also required to do service hours each year.  A total of 22 hours is required and if you don't complete them, you have to pay $25 per hour for what you don't finish at the end of the year.  Yeah.  So, I of course, was waiting patiently for Ms. Fancy Pants to hurry up and be done with whatever meaningless task she was there for, so I could speak to the secretary about any outstanding school balances I had, when I happen to overhear (ok, I was totally eavesdropping) the reason why she was there.  She was trying to weasel her way out of her service hours!!  Not only that, but when they told her she couldn't get out of the hours, she was trying to bribe her way out of having to PAY for them!!  So let me get this straight, you think  you're too special to do the service work for your kid's school, because why?  You don't have a job, so you can't possibly be busy doing something else.  I have a baby that I stay home with and I've found a way to complete hours.  Then, when they told you that you couldn't weasel your way out of the hours, you wanted to bribe them (by telling them you were going to have a party at your house!!  Oh I so wish I could just give you her name and blast her all over the internet, but I'm not that mean) so they wouldn't make you pay for them, even though we all know you have the money to pay it?!  I can't believe what I had just witnessed taking place.

Someone else came in the office at that time and was gooing and gahing over Little in his stroller, so I got sidetracked from the trainwreck I had been watching, but I'm pretty sure they still made her pay, because I saw her hand the secretary a check out of the corner of my eye.  I felt a sense of relief that she was at least held to one of the same standards as I was, even if she was allowed to snatch her bratty kid from the carline before mine, or cut me off without the courtesy of a wave or a thank you.  I'm still pretty sure I saw her give me the once over again as she passed me to walk out of the office, and she didn't even stop to tell me how adorable Little is, which, if you can pass him up without stopping, you must be heartless, but I already knew that.

So, as I surmised in my original post, it seems to me that these moms are really more consumed in themselves and their appearances than in the world of actually being a mom.  Is my appearance sometimes a bit (or a lot) disheveled?  Yes.  Could my house use a maid service?  Yes.  Am I scattered and late and usually halfway lost or less than prepared for whatever it was I forgot I was supposed to be doing?  Absolutely.  Do I give 110% of myself to being a mom and a wife?  Yes.  Maybe that's why I don't have much left over for my dishes, or my makeup or my pedicure.  Or maybe that's why I forgot to take a shower yesterday or run that errand I said I was going to run three days ago.  I try my very best to do my very best at what I do, but this is my very first time being a full time mom and wife.  I've only been doing it for seven months and there's a pretty steep learning curve.  The difference between me and all those mini-van driving, kid bumping, too good to contribute my time, secretary bribing, Barbie doll wanna be, Fancy Pants moms is that even though I might not have all my crap together all the time, at least my heart's in the right place.