Tedium’s Torture

March 7th, 2010 | Author: Greta

I Feel Pretty

I struggle to not lose my mind during one of too many laps down the same uninteresting stretch of freeway to drive my kids to school, from school, from school to softball, and from softball. And please don’t forget to credit me with the little pesky return trips on most of these. Oh, the suffering.

Now this is not a noble kind of suffering. It’s not true, pitiable misery. It’s not respected work. It’s not something to be proud of. But it is. It is my life. I traded in the impossible balance of work and motherhood to become a full time SAHM. Now, I am an unpaid shuttle driver. And I have it GOOD. I do. I am lucky enough to be home full-time to ‘be there’ with my kids. Ladies and gentlemen, ‘be there’ means ‘drive there.’ And it sucks.

When I complain to other moms, they just smile faintly and stare. Do they think I’m a whiner? I am. Even I don’t respect me. You shouldn’t either. Or are they numb? Have they lost the ability to feel human feelings? Have they become one with the machines they ride? Am I slowly becoming a Honda Pilot? If that is to be my fate, I hope it comes fast, because the human/car hybrid is not a cute place to be. You don’t know whether you should cry or drink gasoline.

The tedium is exacerbated by fighting girls who whine for Starbucks and play sparkly purse tug-of-war, causing an in-your-face kind of quarter to fly arrogantly from the glamour pouch and plink itself into your Climate Control System’s vent. Possibly an $800 repair one day. Or did it just land my wind pipe? Hard to tell when you and your car become one.

No one warned me about this when we began having children. They’ll need health insurance: check. Clothing: fine. Time: okay. Patience: on a good day. Love: no problem. But rides? To softball? Physical fitness never seemed more inconvenient.

And then there’s the HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET SCHOOL for which I drive a combined 2 1/2 hours a day, if you include the waiting in the parking lot of the parking lot. The parking lot is literally a parking lot. It’s one thing for a freeway to be a parking lot. It’s another for a parking lot to be a parking lot. I know my readers from Montana just gave up on me.

Yes, you pass your neighborhood school, which humbly eyes you asking, So what’s so great about the HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET SCHOOL? You’re too good for my humbleness? You think you’re a snob with high performing children? Nice Lexus. No, wait, sorry, that’s a Honda. ANYway…you’re a dumb snob because you rear-end is flying idly through the air when it could be contracting and releasing its way to fitness down the little tree-lined path to me. Good luck with that.

Well, I chose the HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET SCHOOL because of the high test scores, since I have taught at both very high performing and very low performing schools. It was very clear which students were getting all the opportunity and which were being left behind. I wanted my children to have those test scores that made people want to move to a certain neighborhood. I wanted my children to defy their zip code and outperform the well-to-do children in the southern part of the county, in the name of social justice, egalitarianism, and, heck, personal vanity. That was before I knew how those test scores were achieved (by moms wearing tight pants, diamond studs and make-up before 8 AM, interrupting yoga to plan the White Man’s Multicultural Day, and gleefully transporting WHEELBARROWS full of flashcards to and from home, after dislodging their faces from the inner recesses of the Teacher Sphincter, one of the most kissed varieties of sphincter on the planet. It’s right up there with Boss Sphincter, Producer Sphincter and People with Vacation Homes in Hawaii Sphincter). Those high scores are not school-made. They are parent-made. By parents who sit, stay, roll over and play dead for the teachers who take pride in the progress of their students. I didn’t know I had to drive all that way, just to pick up flashcards to make the teachers look good. And I don’t get AMEX gift cards in December and June.

So the subtle but certain torture of the car is quite an unhappy conundrum. The suffering, by its very vagueness, is tedious and, thus, torturous. But unlike true trauma, it lacks the malignancy that allows you to feel entitled to pain. It’s like having someone powerwash your eyebrows off, with white chocolate syrup. Sure, your eyebrows have been blasted off, but come on, WHITE CHOCOLATE.

And so I struggle in a way that even I cannot justify. Yes, the SAHMs of the universe suffer, only to be dismissed by the work force as lucky to have the opportunity to experience such boredom. Oops, I forgot to be grateful. Thank you, Boredom.

Now, somebody hit me over the head with anxiety and a deadline. Or, at the very least, some some urgent voicemail to return or ignore. I could use some adrenaline. Perhaps I should just cultivate a love of repetition and talk radio, and burn a really interesting CD for the car… Help!

What are the tedious trials of your day? Please share with me. I hope you’ll comment away.