Screwing Up the Drop-off Line

At our local elementary school, some say they put the new “cone system” in place in order to keep families safer during drop-off time this past year. I’m not so sure. It feels like their new approach was specifically designed for me, blocking my path and interrupting my drop-off efficiency.

Whenever I pull into the school to drop off my daughter, the cone lady heads right for my truck and prohibits me from advancing, while tons of other cars — cars that arrived well after me — get to advance to “Go” and drop off their little ones first. By the time I’m allowed to proceed, those that got to cut the line are already happily on their way, while I get stopped yet again on the way out, this time by the crossing guard. Is there no end to this conspiracy against Red Rider…

I feel like I’ve been flagged. In the early days, back when the kids were at nursery school, I used to get in a lot of trouble for doing the drop-off wrong. No, it wasn’t because I was coming in with my tires screeching, hoping to speed past people and cut everyone off. It wasn’t. It was simply a misunderstanding of how helpful my approach could be.

See, every time I brought my kids to school, there was this open lane that nobody was using. Everyone else would be in a single-file line, slowly making their way around the school’s loop, dropping their kids off at a snail’s pace. It was torture. Most of the holdup came from the mothers initiating lengthy discussions with their child’s teachers. I’m not saying every mother did this, but I am certainly saying that every father didn’t. The dads see the kid drop-off as a business exchange, where superfluous chitchat can only slow down the operation and upset the balance of a previously well-negotiated contract. Hey our taxes are paid, so you take the child and I get the hell out of here. A deal’s a deal.

Teachers, I fully believed, agreed with this rationale, and expected parents to keep up their end of the bargain by expediting the drop-off line. So I decided to be helpful. I know, I thought, I’ll move this along by pulling up next to another car in the middle of dropping off their kids. I’ll just add mine to the mix and this will go twice as fast. My dad instincts told me that this would be very much appreciated by all involved.

After a few of the most efficient and smooth drop-offs the school has ever seen, a teacher approached my car one day and told me “you’re doing it wrong.” That sounded really familiar. I’ve seen this movie. Where have I seen this? She told me that they kept everyone in a single line for safety, “so could you please not do that again?” Oh man, they hate me. Wait a second! I’m the guy from Mr. Mom! This is a thing! I’m a stereotype! Somehow that made me feel better. I may suck at doing the drop-off line, but at least I got being a man right.

With every new school my kids go to, I continue to screw up the drop-off line. It’s just instinct. It’s not that I’m trying to be a menace — my eyes just go to the open lane and I forget the rules. I guess I’m not paying good enough attention. Hmm, maybe I can’t blame the kids so much for having to be told the same thing a million times. Now the teachers don’t even bother to tell me I’m doing it wrong. They just stick a cone in front of me and move on. Smart.

I’ll never come to love the cone, but I’ve come to accept it. Maybe the cone isn’t so bad. Maybe my pre-covid quest for optimal drop-off speed was a lot of unnecessary stress that didn’t help anybody — not even me. The cone forces me to chill out, accept that there are other ways of doing things, and take a little time to ponder important matters — like how to time the drop-off so I don’t get the cone treatment again. It’s a work in progress, but I’ve almost got it down to the perfect minute.