Road Sage

       I remember it like it was yesterday. I was exiting Brooks Drugs on a not-so-quaint stretch of Great Barrington in the Berkshire Mountains. I think Brooks Drugs is now called the less unseemly Brooks Pharmacy. Jaunts to Brooks were frequent in GB because, well, it was in the middle of the mountains and where else was someone supposed to get toothpaste? I am guessing locals of the tiny town stocked up on necessities at a Costco in Springfield, but Brooks was a savior for the weekenders who forgot club soda at their co-ops on the Upper West Side. GB was a town full of decades-old auto repair shops and years-old sushi bars and artisan pottery shops. But only one place to get an Ativan prescription refilled.
       Anyway, the memory is as clear as a mountain day--because, of course, the incident occurred on a mountain in the day. I was leaving Brooks Drugs, with white, non-recyclable plastic bags breaking under the weight of gum, Chapstick, and Diet Coke, and I stepped into the cross walk. The stretch of road was not particularly busy, so there wasn't any great peril to stepping into it in a slightly distracted haze. But this time, something happened that I will never forget: A car ambling up Main Street stopped. Not a jam-on-your-brakes-tires-screeching kind of stop. A refined, thoughtful stop.
        I stood there, one foot into the cross walk, not sure what was going on. There was no traffic light, no stop sign. No family of ducklings waddling. The car continued to calmly idle. What was going on? Was I magic? Never before had I experienced such an unexpected causal relationship. I was well into adulthood at that point and had crossed many a street in my lifetime. I had never before had a car stop for me without swear words being hurled.
         Little did I know at the time, but apparently there is a rule--actually, a full-fledged law!--that mandates drivers stop for pedestrians who are crossing in a crosswalk. In fact, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts--one of the original 13 states and the originator of the feast of Thanksgiving--this act of restraint is stipulated in Title XIV, Chapter 89, Section 11, of the General Laws of the land. And whoever violates any provision of this section shall be punished by a fine of not more than $200. And keep in mind that this was many years ago, when the U.S. Dollar was worth more than the Canadian dollar. And there was no Euro to help tank the international markets. Would I have been awarded $200 if the driver had not stopped?
          I have been both a dedicated pedestrian and driver in my years. I have to say that although it may be safer to be a driver it is definitely cheaper to be a walker. There are so many infractions to driving, more than any sane person could ever be expected to master. I have gotten dinged for all the nit-picky rules that I presumably memorized when I took my driving test back in the 1980s. Parking more than 18 inches from a curb cost me about $45 (1998). I tried to fight that one by claiming I use the metric system, but I was probably 20 years too late for that argument to fly. Speeding in a "construction zone," even if the only thing constructed was the sign designating it a "construction zone," several hundred dollars (2006), and the main reason I am avoiding Nevada until 2013. Talking on a cell phone that is not at my ear (2010), a $25 ticket that turns into $242 with no explanation. And $500 for some infraction that needed to be explained to my twice (2010) and I swear isn't even a real law. Many of us who enhanced CV by studying for and passing the DMV examination pursue higher education through one of the many prestigious Traffic Schools that populate our fair Internet.
          Walking, which is a skill I mastered more than 15 years prior to driving, appears to be less regulated. I like to think of walking as a more Libertarian pursuit than driving. Having spent many of my formative years ambulatory in cities whose streets were designed well before the advent of the automobile, I grew up without an understanding of the actual purpose of crosswalks and flashing white figures and sidewalks. One crosses when one needs to cross. If Starbucks is directly across the street, an Easterner just intrinsically knows how to dodge Saab hatchbacks to get to a latte quickly, without being flattened by a ton of Swedish steel. When I moved to Los Angeles and saw tourists patiently standing on street corners before crossing, I assumed they were waiting for a bus. When in Tokyo I saw locals stop abruptly as a light changed, I worried they were having a seizure. Now that I have children, I make a show of loudly proclaiming how we "always wait for the white walking man," even if there are no cars for miles around. Of course, this is only if there are other pedestrians around.
          So, as a highly educated driver, and a pedestrian of the school-of-hard-knocks variety, I have inadvertently learned pedestrian laws from my experience as a driver. One is not supposed to drive over a cross-walk until the walker is on the other side of the street. Who knew? I grew up playing Frogger with cars, and assumed dodging rolling vehicles was half the fun of getting from Point A to Point B. It hadn't occurred to me until I was ticketed for this very driving infraction (2009) that the driver/walker relationship was not meant to be an adversarial one.  Really, what is the point of having a piercing horn front and center on the steering wheel if not to encourage meandering crossers to light a fire under the asses? Weren't electric windows invented to make it easier for a driver to curse out the window at a jogger with headphones?
           In California, however, the government has the last laugh on pedestrians, Liberterians and, especially, Libertarian pedestrians. Like the "off sides" rule in soccer, people have explained "Jaywalking" to me countless times. I still don't understand how it is done, what the problem is with it, and what it has to do with either the letter "J" or the Blue Jay bird. But that didn't stop a member of my immediate family from coming home with a $100-plus ticket for this alleged infraction. Drivers are fined $200 for not letting a pedestrian cross, and a walker is fined $100 to cross a street? I think it is time for me to use a parasail to get around town.

         


         

Voluntary Commitment

          “My mommy drinks wine. Is that healthy?” my daughter apparently asked a doctor-parent who volunteered to speak to her kindergarten classroom during the school’s Healthy Choices Week. “That depends,” the apparently scientifically credentialled dad responded. “How much does she drink?”

            I learned of this interaction not from an emergency call from either Child Protective Services or an AA sponsor, but from my child herself. I cannot speak as to why she queried this man about her mother’s once-in-a-blue-moon half-glass of wine, and not about my daily ingesting of jars of defatted peanut butter. And I cannot say whether this self-identified “health expert” parent is related to a child with whom she may someday want a playdate. But I can say that this experience should have been a wake-up call for me.

            No, my humiliation in absentia did not give me pause as to whether I should order a Shirley Temple in lieu of a Pinot Noir next time we go to a French bistro. And, no, I have not taken to wearing dark glasses at school drop-off to avoid the possible disapproving look of her teacher. (Though that wouldn’t be a bad idea because my eye make-up is usually not adequately blended at drop-off time.) What this incident confirmed to me is that I need to stay as far away from my children’s classrooms as possible.

            The “My Mommy is a Lush” scenario was not my first inkling that there is a very good reason I work at a job that is completely unrelated to my children’s educational milieu. The red flags were there early on, and wildly waving, alerting me to the danger of spending too much time at my children’s school. The traffic stops by our city’s finest, citing me for illegally stopping in a School Zone. Twice. The daily cursing under my breath (but apparently loud enough to be heard by a classmate’s sibling—sorry!) at the inept crossing guard who clearly did not ace his classes in, well, street-crossing. And the inability to recall the actual name of my child’s current teacher when calling the truancy office to explain why my child was late. And neglecting to read apparently critical flyers jammed into a designated folder in my child’s backpack. And sending my child to school with a large 15-pound pumpkin for a seasonal activity which, unbeknownst to me, involved my 5 year old needing to carry it around all day. I still don’t exactly understand that activity, because, fortunately, I was not there to witness it. But kudos to the parent-volunteer on duty who lugged the pumpkin around all day for my daughter!

            Even with all of the clues that I am not meant to spend more than three minutes at a time on an elementary school campus—and, trust me, I can do a drop-off in less time than that—for some reason I still tempt fate.

            I had a day off about a month into the school year, so I thought I would volunteer my Ph.D.-educated time and skills to my children’s school. After a frenetic set of emails with both children’s teachers (frenetic on my part, calm and reasoned on theirs), it was determined that I would help out in my kids’ classrooms for certain activities. This time around, I was savvy enough to insist that I help in the classrooms themselves. I learned the hard way in my last attempt to volunteer (two years earlier) that if a parent does not specify the desire to be able to eyeball their kid during the volunteering experience, the parent will get stuck in the Xerox room unjamming spelling lists from the copier.

            I made arrangements to spend half the morning at my daughter’s kindergarten class, the other half at my son’s 5^th grade class, and then concocted a complex schedule to maximize my one-on-one time with each child individually once they were out of school, but without either of them having to go to the dreaded “after-care” for even a moment. Perhaps you see why the Ph.D. and intensive statistical training were needed. I explained the schedule to my children, who followed the plan well enough for my 10-year-old son to interrupt me with a look of horror: “You are not going to be in my class, are you?” Ah, well, er, yes dear, that was the plan. I provided an abridged history of my life leading up to becoming a working mother, and how I would derive great joy from this rare opportunity to share in my children’s educational enrichment. My son, whose listening skills usually run the gamut from distracted to more distracted, repeated his mantra: “No, seriously, you are NOT going to be in my class.”

            Well, since the point of the day was to demonstrate my support of their academic process, humiliating my pre-teen by sitting in his classroom was indeed negotiable. So after another set of one-sidedly urgent emails, his teacher devised a way for me to help out by sitting in the hallway, so I could be near enough to peek in periodically. She is brilliant.

            So, the big day arrives and I come armed with a travel mug of coffee and fully charged iPhone. It was hard to balance my oversized Coach bag onto those little, tiny kindergarten chairs, but after rearranging the art supplies and worksheets on the little, tiny kindergarten table I was assigned to, I was ready to roll. My daughter’s teacher had Scholastic book order brochures waiting for me to collate, group and distribute into the children’s folders. Little did she know I was a pro at such projects after many years in the 1980s stuffing envelopes for political campaigns. I was determined to collate, group and distribute better than any parent volunteer before me. So much so that it took a while for me to notice my daughter was craning her neck during story time to make sure I was still there. The worried look on her face did not match the thrill I was getting from imagining how I was besting all the mothers and fathers who stuffed folders before me. She looked anxious to have me there, not knowing when I was going to leave. When the time finally came, I was still on a high from not only the quantity but the quality of my pencil-sharpening, alphabetizing, and stamping. There was no doubt in my mind that I would move up to the top of the list as the most in-demand parent-volunteer. My daughter, however, was not savoring my victory; she was crying and had to be extricated from my leg by her teacher, with assurances that I would be back to pick her up later, for Phase II of Mommy’s Day Off.