Rules Of The Pool

Before going too far with this "pool" stuff, I want to set the record straight. I always like to set the record straight. When I say "Pool" (above in the title), I am referring to the carpool. Certainly, I am not talking swimming pool here.

How can you be so sure? I would never write about anything that requires a bathing suit. As a matter of fact, I have all but banished the two words from the kingdom of my vocabulary. I might still use each one separately. Bathing... as in something that you do in order not to smell. Suit...as in something my husband likes to buy, but only if it is by one designer in particular.

The carpool. I used to be in one when I was a little kid. Activities included swallowing pennies and crawling, from the regular back seat of the car, into the "way-back". Occasionally, it was driven by one famous Hollywood person or another.

When I got a little older, we had a carpool driver. A man who picked us up in his Chevrolet Impala and clicked his teeth, something that fascinated the four of us whose mothers had paid him to drive. I'm thinking they wrote his check, not so much for his driving services, but more as a fee for allowing them to sleep in.

Eventually, like the minute I turned sixteen, I started driving myself to school. It's possible that I actually drove a carpool of people from my street for a while, but I don't remember. It's kind of awful to think that a teenage girl would be responsible for a bunch of other kids in a car. It didn't sound bad then. But now that I am the mother of a fifteen-year-old son, it all looks different.

For the first time in his life (if you don't count one summer program), my son is in a carpool. Which is to say, I am a carpool driver. Along with two other moms and their two kids, we have a system. It feels very official. Mostly, I see it as a device to ensure my son's timely arrival at school. For years, there has been no one else's tardy count at stake. Although he squeaked in under the wire most of the time, there was plenty of anxiety about whether or not a grade would drop a half point after the one late arrival to break the camel's back. I think he reversed the consequences by offering to do his Shakira imitation for the teacher. The guy took him up on it.

So this morning, my first driving the carpool, I have figured out the basic rules. 1) Don't talk. 2) Don't talk. 3) Don't talk. About anything.

Do not mention the skin solution still on your kid's face from last night. Not even quietly, under your breath. This one is a no win.

Do not make it sound like you are any less weird than the weird dad who was in the carpool last year. Apparently, he was weird because he made the kids listen to his choice of radio station. Just because you don't do the same thing, it doesn't make you not-weird.

Don't speak unless you are spoken to. And even then, think twice about opening your mouth.

My best advice? Pretend the car is driving itself.