Free A Farewell to Yarns by Jill Churchill Page B

sort of thing. I missed all of Bobby's growing up. I wish I could have picked him and his little friends up from school.”
    It was more than Jane could stand.
    “Phyllis, that's the sappiest thing I've ever heard! You have no idea what you're saying. The school parking lot is the deadliest place in t he world. T here's alwa ys one pea brained woman who parks blocking the drive and goes off and leaves her car. And then there's usually at least two boys who walk past the line of cars running their hands—and sometimes a sharp object—along the sides of the car. No matter how carefully you investigate the children, you end up with one in every car pool who's never ready in time—"
    “Investigate the children?"
    “Oh, sure. Getting into a car pool is like applying for high-level government security clearance, except it's done more subtly. From preschool on, each child and his driving parent are accumulating a performance record. Before you allow a new person in the car pool you have to know all about their past. Does the mother take her fair share of driving without whining?
    Can the kid be controlled in the car?
    Do they live on a street that has good snow removal in the winter? With older kids, you have to take into consideration such things as whether a girl is given to wearing too much perfume—that can be deadly in a closed car—or whether the kid plays a very large band instrument. That's what counts against me, and I know it. Even when you check all that out, once a week somebody goes home with someone else without bothering to pass word along to that day's driver, and you have to comb the school building for them. They leave their books, their mittens, and their half-chewed bubble gum in the backseat. Occasionally they throw up their breakfast on the way to school. One of my girls last year managed to get her hair tangled up in the door handle, and I had to cut her loose. Her mother was furious and sent me a bill from the hairdresser for fixing up the damage.”
    Phyllis was laughing and wiping tears from her eyes. "Aren't there any good things about driving the children ?"
    “Oh, yes. There's one. When a woman has her hands on the wheel of a moving car, she's perceived as part of the mechanism. She ceases to be a mother, or even a human being with ears. The kids will say anything. Things they'd sooner die than tell you, they'll talk about endlessly in a moving car. It's the only way I have any idea what my children are up to. Phyllis, I've got to get going. Help yourself to anything you want if you're hungry. I'm fixing spaghetti for dinner. You aren't allergic or anything, are you?"
    “Not to anything and I love spaghetti. Say,Jane—George Whitman said Chet's son John has been trying to get hold of me. Something about the business, I think. Not that I know anything about it. But would you mind if I invited him to come over here to talk to me? Not for dinner, of course—"
    “I wouldn't mind a bit," Jane said menda ciously. Just so long as he doesn't bring along a volleyball, she was tempted to add. "There are some cookies in that jar you can giv e him. I'll only be forty minutes or so.”
    Shelley was just coming in her driveway as Jane got ready to go. Jane went over to Shelley's car window. "Is there anything I can do to make up to you for this morning? Kiss your feet? Give you my firstborn?"
    “You give me one more kid and I will get even. After I lined the little darlings up to be weighed, I had to be the reading lady for the third graders. The usual volunteer was sick. Sick, my eye! The canny bitch was just smarter than me. They were climbing me like a jungle gym. Why don't they all have nervous break downs before Christmas? More to the point, why don't we? Think it over, Jane. It's not a bad idea. We could stage some sort of seizure in the front yard. Foam at the mouth and chew sticks. They'd take us off to a nice sanitarium where somebody else has to wrap the gifts and stuff the clammy turkey and get