So, I need some advice because I may have officially ruined my first kindergarten car line drop-off.
Everything started off perfectly. I found the line, executed a precise curb pull-up like a pro, and even managed to flash my sweetest, most charming smile at the designated kid-picker-upper teacher. The drop-off went off without a hitch, and I felt like a responsible adult. I was calm, collected, confident… basically a parenting superstar.
And then… disaster struck.
THUMP.
I had somehow managed to plow right over a ridiculously large orange traffic cone. Chaos erupted immediately. The driver in front of me and multiple safety patrollers were frantically yelling and waving me down like I’d just driven through a fire. My heart sank. My bald head was beet red. I was mortified.
I got out of the car, completely frazzled, stopping the entire line behind me. And then, in what can only be described as a lapse in common sense, I proceeded to army crawl under my truck, trying to pry the cone out. (Why didn’t I just back up? Who knows.) When I finally emerged, the scene looked straight out of an apocalypse movie—cars everywhere, people staring in horror… except the disaster wasn’t a tsunami. It was me.
The cone looked like a crumpled Sorting Hat from Harry Potter. I handed it over to a safety patroller without making eye contact, trying to disappear into my truck like a ghost. I could literally hear everyone behind me shaking their heads in disbelief. And of course, to make everything even more humiliating, my mother-in-law was in the car. Perfect.
By the time I got to work, a kindly colleague pointed out a black streak of dirt running from my forehead to my neck—proof of my undercarriage crawl for all to see. So, lesson learned: my first day of kindergarten drop-offs will forever be recorded as “The Scarlet Letter of Carline Doofus.”
Honestly, compared to me, anyone’s first-day disaster is nothing. I’ve officially lowered the bar, and I’ll be hiding in shame for the foreseeable future. I guess my wife gets all future drop-offs. I don’t blame her.
