Drive-through lines are all the rage for picking up dry-cleaning, fast food and even groceries.
Car lines for picking up kids at school, on the other hand, just make people rage.
After the first-day-of-school euphoria has passed, the dreaded ritual awaits.
Dennis McKelvey, mother of two school-age children in the Little Rock School District, feels her blood pressure rise just from hearing other people discuss car lines.
"I hate the drop-off line," she says.
It's no wonder, really, since the seemingly simple act of transporting children to and from school combines the stresses of traffic, a time crunch and ... children, who may or may not be cooperative.
The beginning of the school year is particularly rough, as newbies try to decipher the proper procedures.
As Venus Hawkins, whose daughters attend eSTEM in Little Rock recalls, "I inched along in the after-school line for an hour. When I got to the front of the line, the police officer told me I was in the wrong lane and made me start all over again.
"My charms didn't work on him."
Car line problems aren't exclusive to big towns, however. Parents in Magnolia, with a population of about 11,700, have the same complaints as those delivering their children to schools in the state capital.
Mary Ellen Green of Magnolia says, "I have one at the junior high right now, and my husband loses his religion every afternoon. People block you in, and you have to wait an eternity for their child to get in the car when your child has been in your car for 20 minutes it seems."
All car lines have their problems. And in every one is at least one parent who doesn't think the rules apply to his or her child.
Angela Pieratt, also of Magnolia, remembers an incident: "This mom had to visit a second, wave as the child walked up the sidewalk, and only pulled away once 'Precious' was in the building ... and I'm talking about an eighth-grader. Meanwhile, traffic is backed up in the drop-off lane."
DRIVEN UP A WALL
To be fair, sometimes it's the kids, not the parents, causing the problems.
Anne Santifer of Little Rock says, "People who are not prepared drive me bonkers. Don't wait until it's your child's turn to get out to locate lunch boxes, coats, projects, class pets, etc."
Sara Beth Brennan shares that pet peeve.
"Kids lingering in the car in line," Brennan says. "Like, OMG, let me get my stuff together because I just realized I'm at school."
And sometimes it's not as much about gathering belongings as it is blowing off steam.
Mary Martha Henry of Little Rock recalls one fateful day when sibling rivalry caused a roadblock.
"Once, when the kids took their seat belts off, my boys jumped on each other and started fighting," says Henry, who was fortunate enough not to be present for that cage match. A friend had carpool duty that day. "After the fight, my younger one refused to get out of the car. He's pretty stubborn, and I'm not exactly sure how long it took her to talk him into getting out, but I am sure the person behind her was cussing."
Social media traffic is as heavy as a school zone at rush hour with posts and tweets complaining about -- and sometimes even publicly shaming -- parents who don't follow the rules, turning where they aren't supposed to, talking on cellphones in the pick-up line and just generally being rude. (For the record, Arkansas law prohibits use of cellphones in school zones.)
Noelle Scuderi of Little Rock says, "People that don't pull up drive me bonkers. Usually maneuvering doesn't help anyone either -- going around them, for example. You just have to take deep breaths and wait it out. Most of the time, I just avoid the line altogether and park/walk to get my kids. I hate being 'stuck' and at the mercy of the person in front of me or five cars in front of me."
Some people squeal into the car line at the last possible moment, zooming into the first possible spot, slamming on their brakes and pushing their kids out before the tardy bell sounds/they are late for work/their coffee gets cold.
Tanesha Forrest of Little Rock vents, "There was one car that would whip around the entire line to pull in front of everyone else. Nothing makes me crazier than somebody thinking they are more important than everyone else."
Sometimes parents get in a big hurry -- and then they stop.
Heather Starnes of Little Rock shares, "I once had a lady pass cars waiting in the carpool line and then squeeze in between two cars who had some space between them. She then got out of her car and went into the school building, leaving the entire line of cars blocked with no way to get around her."
Others arrive impossibly early, way before their children might reasonably be expected to exit the building. The parents of children expected to come out first are then forced to wait behind them -- often way, far behind them -- until their children appear, so they can move on.
Scuderi says, "At one school my kids went to, the carpool line would start forming as much as 45 minutes before school got out. No matter how early you got there, you were still so far back in the line that you couldn't see the entrance to the school.
"The endless waiting and not knowing when the line starts moving is too much for my nerves."
All this angst requires some serious coping strategies -- reading, playing Sudoku, practicing the bagpipes, etc.
Jaclyn Larson, a Bryant teacher, has been amused to find parents who have fallen asleep in the pickup line.
The unfortunate souls who have been roped into carpool duty deserve special recognition. They are the ones who wave their arms and raise their voices to be heard over the sounds of revving engines and slamming car doors, ordering -- and sometimes begging -- people to pull forward and keep the line moving and, for the love of all that's holy, let their kids out on the side of their cars that don't put them in the line of oncoming traffic.
Tara Kittrell of Little Rock confesses, "Carpool duty brings out the worst in me."
One solution to car line madness is to avoid it altogether.
"Park and walk!," Scuderi says, although it's possible school administrators frown upon that kind of initiative.
And she's not alone.
Susan Robinson of Little Rock says, "I'm a park-and-walk mom, too. I have zero patience for all that mess."
Style on 08/15/2017