A bunch of questions for the parents lined up in their cars for miles around Kuper Academy in Kirkland, blocking streets and texting idly while people just try and use the roads to, you know, get places in the world.
You may be familiar with this unfortunate phenomenon. Every weekday, around 3 p.m., a huge number of massive SUVs, minivans and other symbols of wealth and comfort line up on the streets around Kuper Academy in Kirkland, a private school whose property is bordered by residential; side streets and two industrial thoroughfares, to bottle neck the intersection of Edmond Street, where residential Aesop Ave. meets the eastern end of Ste. Marie Road. Frequently, I work out at a gym near there on Fridays at 3 p.m., and I have never failed to be horrified by the sheer self-centredness of the parents (I assume parents; could be caregivers) who blockade the road in the slowest-moving caravan OF ALL TIME. The excitement I feel while anticipating lifting weights with my friends is often completely mitigated by my horror at always, always encountering the same blockade of stubborn, passive-aggressive parents waiting for their precious snowflakes to come out of the edifice.
And before you go asking yourself ‘Hey, wait! That sure seems like passive-aggressive behavior in and of itself!’
And that’s where you’d be oh, so wrong. There’s nothing passive about it. It’s just out-and-out aggressive. The reason I’m so angry is that this type of behavior is so easily remedied...by pulling to the side of the road. Here is what goes through my head when I’m waiting for these clowns to move.
1. Why are you blocking the road?
2. No, seriously? Why are you blocking the road?
3. Do you not realize that the streets are actually not just a parking lot for you to pick up your child an avenue for drivers to get from one place to another and a place that still other people call home?
4. See the side of the road? That’s the place to wait for your kid. See the middle of the road? That’s fort MOVING vehicles.
5. Also, think about cutting the engine on the SUV. You know that climate change stuff they’re talking about? This is part of why it’s happening. Obviously you love your child, because you’re waiting in a1.7-kilometre-long line to pick them up at the door of their private school. Why not help them live in a more comfortable world later on? Oh, right. You’re comfortable now, so…
6. Can you just get off your phone for five seconds, please?
7. Does this strike anyone else as insane?
8. And seriously. If you are five-foot-two, you don’t need the Chevy Suburban XL. You just don’t.
9. It does nothing to ingratiate you to the school’s neighours.
10. Would you please move over?
11. Please?
12. Pretty please with sugar on top?
The only time I’ve ever managed to get through that traffic with any kind of haste was the time I brought a sign with me offering free Iphones for people who pulled over. I left the sign, and when all the cars pulled up, I hopped in my car and left. And the rest of those drivers stood there, unmoving.
‘Huh,’ I thought to myself. ‘I guess it’s not just driving. They just want to wait around.’
Noted.
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