The Crossing

As fall quickly approaches winter I find that I am reluctant to jump out of my bed quite as early as I once did.  I blame this fact on the coziness and warmth of the many blankets that adorn my bed.  Of course, there is no rest for the weary (or wicked) and inevitably I have to get up and get myself and the children out of the door and off to school.  Lately though, as I approach my daughter Camryn’s middle school, I find myself approaching an evil like no other.  This evil does everything in its power to detain me, and literally goes out of its way to stop me in my tracks (or in this case my car).  What is this evil you ask? Glad you asked.  It is none other than the middle school crossing guard. 

In order to understand where this evilness toward me sprang, I have to take you back about a month and a half ago.  One day, as is usually the case, I found myself running late (big surprise) so I was pretty much pushing the speed limit to get my daughter out of the car and into the building before 7:30 a.m.  As I looked at my clock for the 49th time and wishing that I could slow time down for at least three minutes, I find that it is 7:24 when I attempt to pull into the middle school parking lot and, as usual, I am lecturing my daughter.  Well in between the lecturing and the worry that I was not going to get her into the school on time, I quickly tapped on the brakes at the cross walk, stopped briefly, and was about to keep going (as there were no children present in the crosswalk) when this short, robust, African-American version of Hercule Poirot blows his whistle and jumps in front of my car.  Now, I am a very friendly person (usually) but he scared me so I believe that I said something to the effect of “Oh my, he has startled me.” (Just don’t ask my daughters what I said as I am certain that they did not hear what I said correctly and will tell you that I said something totally different than what I am writing here).  Then I heard him (Pseudo Hercule) screaming that I was not obeying his stop sign.  Now, I am not a member of Mensa so I do not consider myself a genius by any stretch of the imagination, but I do not know of anyone who will obey a stop sign of a crossing guard who is still on the sidewalk.  Needless to say, I gave this man the patented Rod look which conveys the message of “get away from me you kook” and “if you want to be a hood ornament for my Ford Taurus stay right there.” At this point, I finally wheel around to the drop-off point and rush my child out of the car and it is exactly 7:29. Whew! I made it with seconds to spare.  I had forgotten my altercation with Hercule until the next day.

The next day I drive up and as I approach the crosswalk, this same security guard attempts to run into the crosswalk to delay me even though there are no children in the crosswalk.  However, I breezed on through because he could not get there in time.  For one thing, he wears a uniform that is entirely too snug for his frame and he walks as if his shoes are three sizes too small.  So Mr. Crossing Guard,  if you are going to stop Rod you have to move quicker than that in order to get me to stop.  As I pull around to the drop-off point, I look in my rearview mirror and it looks as if he is seething.  I chuckle to myself and think “Way to show Hercule up Rod.  That’ll learn him!”  Little did I know . . . 

On the third day, this guard (who must have eaten his Wheaties this day) jumps into the crosswalk and I am forced to stop.  I kid you not, this man had eight students waiting to cross and instead of allowing them to cross together, he broke the group up as if he were Noah and the children were boarding the ark.  Hercule split them up in teams of two and made them wait until the previous two students made it safely across.  Really Crossing Guard? Seriously?  You are now taking this vendetta against me a little too far!  As I am waiting for this mother . . . umm gentleman to let me pass, the cars behind me start to honk. I throw up my hands to let the driver behind me know that I cannot move until Hercule allows me to and it was then that the crossing guard looked at me and smirked.  Even my daughter caught the smirk and said, “I don’t think he likes you dad.”  “No baby,” I say, “I really do not think that he does.”

This game of “can I catch him before he gets to the crosswalk?” has literally been going on for 31 days as of this writing and it shows no sign of stopping anytime soon.  I am ahead by 19 days though, and for those of you who are asking, yes, I’m keeping score.  I especially love the time when I was in my wife’s car and he did not realize it was me until it was too late, but by then I was turning the corner to the drop-off point.  He actually glared at me that day.  I swear there is never a dull moment in the middle school parking lot.  And please know this dear reader: As long as he continues with this childish game, I have just enough “child” in me to continue it with him.  I am really up for the challenge . . . and besides, I’m ahead point wise.  Until next time dear reader, always look for the funny.

What's in a name?

Last week I was enjoying a very good dinner in Atlanta, Georgia.  The food was great, my dinner companions were erudite and the conversation was electrifying.  At some point in the conversation the topic turned to strange names that we have run across in our line of work.  The top names that we found to be the most extreme are as follows:

Exhibit A- #1- Twins named Orangejello and Lemonjello- Now, for those of you who can’t see it, the names are actually formed by combining two words and creating a brand new one (Orange Jello and Lemon Jello).  Now keep in mind that I am thinking that these are urban legends, but my companions at the dinner table are assuring me that they know people with these names and have not just “heard” about these names.

Exhibit B- #2- Abcd (pronounced in two ways- either as Ah bee sa dee or Abb sa dee)- Actually a friend of mine in Upstate South Carolina told me that she knew a student with this name so it must be catching on in our nation.

Exhibit C- #3- Shi’thead (This is actual pronounced Sha thade, but if you take out the apostrophe, shift the “t” over  towards the “i” and separate the name into two words after the “t” and before the "h" and you have a whole new name (and probably a fight on your hands should you choose to use this handle).

However, my all time favorite name mentioned comes from the great state of Alabama. The #1 strange name (and Exhibit D - #4) is La-a.  Now I know that many of you are pronouncing this as Lah ah or Lay ay but you would be wrong. The correct pronunciation of this name is…wait for it…Ladasha (La dash ah). Yes folks, you have to pronounce the “dash.”

Really people, seriously?  You actually sat down and came up with these names and thought that these were cute? The sad thing is that many of these names started off as urban legends, but somewhere down the line someone heard it and thought that they would be befitting of their children.

I am all about individualizing a name and making it unique, but in my opinion some names are taken a tad bit too far as you can see in exhibits A through D.  When my wife and I chose to name our children, we wanted to make sure that we were choosing names that our children could live with for the rest of their lives.  I know that my girls will probably one day take on the last name of some “knucklehead” that they meet (although I am attempting to instill in them the desire to hyphenate and keep their original last names), but that first name belongs to them for life (unless they legally change it to something like Lilakoi Moon, which is what Lisa Bonet of “The Cosby Show” fame did).  I know that had my parents chosen to name me Shi’thead, as soon as I was able I would have run my fat behind to court to change my name pronto!

In conclusion, let me say to expecting parents . . . please think about what you are going to name that bundle of joy that God has chosen to bestow upon you.  The name that you give your child will follow him or her  (more than likely) for the rest of their lives and you don’t want to tick them off that early in life.  Remember, that they will probably be responsible for choosing the nursing home that you will reside in for the remainder of your days.  

As always, remember dear reader . . . to always look for the funny.