Drop off times are no big deal, parents screech to a stop, unload the kids and speed off to work. Pick up times, however, are a whole different thing. Starting at about a half hour before the actual pick up time some parents start arriving. They take the choicest parking spaces; in front of the school and positioned for an easy escape. As the others begin to arrive they take less choice spots but they are still legal. Then we get the sidewalk and corner parkers. The sidewalk parker drives up onto the sidewalk and parks double next to the person who is already parked at the curb (obviously only on those small sections of sidewalk without guardrails). The corner parker pulls in head first into the corner, you can get three small cars around a corner that way. And finally we come to the worst of the group, the driveway parkers.
The driveway parkers, after a cursory glance around, just decide “screw it” and park in front of our driveways. There are four residences across from the school; four small spaces where four small cars fit. It is important to also note that the driveway parkers are invariably also parents who have to leave their vehicles and go into the school for one reason or another and the driveway parker that parks in front of my right hand neighbor’s house is invariably the one with the scheduled teacher conference or something similar.
This twice daily event so enrages my neighbor that he has posted a no parking sign in front of his driveway. From time to time I’ve even seen him standing at the curb, giving all would be parkers the evil eye, all to no avail. If you pull your car up to the edge of the driveway in an attempt to leave and thus confront the driveway parker, the offending parent loads the children into the car and drives away pretending the entire time that they don’t see you. It can make you want to pull a ‘Tawanda’! (I’m not that hormonal yet though)
Then a week ago, as I looked out my window while sipping my morning coffee, I noticed two men out at my curb painting the driveway curb yellow. They were painting all four of our curbs yellow. Yellow means NO PARKING! I saw my right hand neighbor come out and greet these gentlemen with barely suppressed glee. He brought them coffee and croissants and stayed to chat while these men worked. At last, someone was laying down the law! At the noon pick up time the men were still painting and they very rudely and loudly shooed anyone away that even looked at the driveways. Not to enforce the rule mind you but to protect the still tacky paint. By the time the 5:00 pm pick up approached though, the men were long gone. I was riveted to my window; I set an alarm so I would not miss this. What would happen now, I mean yellow paint is all fine and good, but really not much of a deterrent to the desperate; puncture strips maybe, but paint? Right!
Well of course you know that the paint had no effect whatsoever. Those last desperate few pulled right into the driveway spaces without a seconds hesitation; as if the curb had never been any other color. I saw my neighbor come flying out of his house and give an earful to the one parent that dared to break the LAW in front of his house. As this chastised parent pulled out and the neighbor walked back to his door, another, blithely, pulled right in. My neighbor threw his hands up in disgust, hung his head in defeat and slammed his door shut.
Then I got an idea. I read this story in Newsweek and was inspired:
Newsweek International February 2, 2004 My Pony's Name Is Chief Author: David Ray Edition: Atlantic Edition Section: Letter From France Page: 8 |
|
The day after the 2003 Gault-Millau
guide demoted Bernard Loiseau's Cote d'Or restaurant in Burgundy from
19 to 17 points, the famous chef shot himself, leaving behind three children,
a wife, several restaurants, a boutique and a frozen-food line. The French
were deeply saddened at losing the man who had perfected Bresse chicken
poached in an earthenware pot with foie gras and truffles, but they were
not surprised. Making good grades is everything in France. They define your rank and status even more than in America. I discovered this on the AstroTurf in St-Laurent-du-Var, about 20 minutes west of Nice, at my son's football practice. His team of 20 little boys chased the ball like a school of confused fish. The coach yelled at them to separate, to pass, to find the open man, but the pack clumped together in midfield until the whistle blew. Time to grade the boys. One by one each kid was marked on the correct use of his right foot and left, his header and the accuracy of his penalty shot. The alpha males were separated from the runts and the joy of the game was lost, at least for me as I sat with the French mothers, who smoked as much as they complained. I soon found this was a rather modest grading affair, compared with, say, horseback riding as arbited by the Federation Francaise d'Equitation. After six months astride Chief, my son came home from school with his Attestation de Competences for Level One, Yellow. The document was signed, dated and stamped and listed six clear objectives. Among them: "I know my pony and call him by name" and "I stop the pony in a precise place." Another paper soon followed, accrediting his swimming abilities at level four: "Doing the breast stroke for 25 meters without stopping to float" and "Retrieving an object .80 meters underwater." If only the federation were kind enough to add, "Picks up wet towel and suit from bathroom floor." Nothing compares with the grading of schoolwork. The single subject of French has seven separate categories: reading, grammar, conjugation, vocabulary, handwriting, recitation and spelling. Perfection is defined by the fraction 20/20. It's an A+, the perfect 10, your ticket to one of the few grandes ecoles. Alas, I fear for my daughter. We share a nemesis--the conjugation of irregular French verbs. She received a 14.89 in her first trimester. The high in the class was a 19.00 and the low was 11.06, all duly noted on her report card. Perhaps because I went to Brown University in Rhode Island, where pass-fail was the rule, this obsession with scores began to grate on me. But I soon found a way to turn it to my benefit. Tired of shoveling up the poop of Madame Delforge's German shepherd at 7:30 in the morning, I politely told her in my broken French, "Madame Delforge, you get a 5 over 20 for picking up the caca of your dog." Since then I have seen no poop on my doorstep. I tried the same technique on the driving instructor who parked in the crosswalk while getting a baguette, as well as on the ladies who fingered all the peaches at the fruit stand. With one simple fraction, I achieved prompt behavior modification. This secret sense of power went to my head. I started grading everything. Drivers got a 10 for going too slow. A sunny day was an 18, a cold one 15--worse if I forgot my jacket. None of this made me happy. To the contrary, I felt like a crab. Then one day I received a Father's Day card from my son: WORLD'S BEST DAD. It was one of those silly Hallmark things, and of course I started to grade it--then instinctively stopped. Time to return to pass-fail, I decided. Life has been excellent ever since. |
This article gave me an idea, I’m going to make up parking report slips to place on windshields. They’ll reflect three grading areas.
1. Effort made to find another place.
2. Duration of stay in an illegal spot. (less is more)
3. Receptiveness to criticism and hostility.
I’ll share this plan with my dispirited neighbor. I envision him taking to this idea with great zeal. I won’t have to do a thing.
