Things I might have done, had I left the house 45 minutes later this morning:
Finished my grapefruit.
Had a second cup of coffee.
Taken the dog for a longer walk.
Put away the laundry that is still languishing at the bottom of my bed.
We signed up for a planetarium visit at a local college this morning. The way these things work for home schoolers are usually as follows: Parent gathers information about an excursion and posts relevant dates, cost and other pertinent information on any number of local e-lists. Other parents sign up and send checks. The organizer will usually send a reminder email out to those parents who have signed up their child for the activity. The day of, we meet at the appointed time for fun and hijinks.
This trip? I had an inkling it might be different. The organizer (let's call her Eva B.) after determining a level of interest for the trip, but before giving us her address to mail our checks, sent several fretful emails about the need for parking passes and the need to leave younger siblings at home and oh, could she change the date and, oops, actually there are two different programs for different age groups so now, could we check which one we'd enjoy more and which one applied to our child in particular? Did we have children in both age groups? How were we ever going to figure that one out?
Finally, we had a date, I sent Eva B. a check and subsequently received a weekly "countdown to planetarium visit" email from her. They started out friendly enough, "Just a reminder!" "Here are some useful astronomy links!" but quickly developed a stern tone, admonishing us not to arrive late, to be sure to print out a campus parking map, not to plan on eating our lunches in the earth science quad, not to allow this trip to be our child's first encounter with astronomy, but to introduce the subject at home beforehand, etc.
Eva B. sounded like a bit of a bossy-boots! Last week, I received not one, but two emails with a suggested time line. The show started at 11. I should arrive on campus NO LATER THAN 10:15, in order to procure an extremely "difficult to obtain" parking spot, before meeting her at 10:45 so we could all go into the planetarium as a group. Also, she gave a physical description that left me scratching my head. She'd be the "tall [insert stereotypically short of stature ethnicity here] lady with curly hair and a very loud scarf". This led me to assume I'd be meeting an "I'm so tall, I slouch" tranny of the tennis playing variety doing hir best to conceal hir Adam's apple behind a hideous scarf.
I arrived promptly at 10:15, pulling up to the security booth and asking where I'd best find parking at this hour of day. He looked at me in a kindly manner usually reserved for the very old or mentally challenged and gestured at the veritable ocean of empty parking spaces behind him, "Just pick one of those."
We arrived at the appointed meeting place at 10:17. Eva B. (who couldn't have been taller than 5'3") rushed up to greet us and cross off our names on a clipboard. Then we found a bench to read our book together.
At 10:45, Eva B. gathered us up to walk over to the earth sciences quad. The campus wasn't big. We arrived at the quad about 2 minutes later. But this was the quad we'd been ordered not to eat our lunch in, the quad surrounded by classrooms, the quad where visiting children must be quiet at all costs. Eva B. corralled us in the very center of the very small quadrangle. After a few minutes the kids started getting restless. A couple wandered away from our group and Eva B. immediately fluttered over, "No, no! This is too close to the classrooms! You must come back here!" She walked in slow circles around us, playing sheep dog.
At 11:05 I overhead another mother ask if there was a delay, to which Eva B. responded, "Actually, the program doesn't start until 11:15 but you know how hard it is to get everyone to arrive on time..."
Actually, Eva B. I'm a big girl. If I'm late and the door is locked, you can keep my admission fee and I'll deal with the consequences of my own actions, thankyouverymuch! Also, Eva B.? If our goal is not to disturb the classrooms surrounding the quad, maybe we shouldn't take 20 restless, bored kids and dump them in the middle of it for half an hour.
Then she asked us to line up in 2 lines. She tsk, tsked us if we shifted our weight in such a way that made the lines waver a bit. Once we knew what line we were in, there was no standing to the side so as to better hear a conversation, or holding a child's hand so they stood next to you. Eva B. actually walked the line, "Please, a straight line!" "No, no! You must stand here!"
I actually rolled my eyes. Something I don't think I've done seriously since I was about 16. I was going to give her a piece of my mind, but I'd been there an hour and to be honest, her control freak antics were mildly entertaining.
At any rate, I learned something new today. If I should happen to see an excursion hosted or organized by Eva B., no matter how thrilling or behind the scenes or right up my kid's alley, I will give it a miss.
