If you know me, you know that I am usually an avid sign reader and rule follower. I never park where I’m not supposed to park. If a sign says no trespassing — I don’t trespass — willingly, although when Dean is in the lead I usually reluctantly follow even if it goes against the rules (another subject for a blog post).

That said, I have been known to drive into and park/stand in the “buses only” part of the driveway leading to the kids’ school. At first I wouldn’t, because the signs clearly state “Buses only”, but because after school one can count dozens of vehicles that park and drive along that driveway, I decided that my one small car would not make a difference. And wasn’t it safer for the kids if they didn’t have to walk across an SUV filled driveway? So I began dropping Andrew off at wrestling and picking him up via the buses only area. All was fine until one day when Whitman’s assigned police officer was on his way out the front doors of the school. He looked at me, shook his head, smiled (not in a friendly way) and ambled up to my car. I rolled the window down and he asked me what I was doing. I said I was dropping my son off. He asked if I knew that cars were not allowed in the area. I said something about it being after school and I thought it was OK then (I should have mentioned the fact that usually there were dozens of cars doing the same thing after school, but didn’t). He said that the sign didn’t give specific hours, so it meant cars were never allowed within the buses only driveway. He then made me turn around and drive out the entrance.

That was my second interaction with the police officer at school. The first time I was dropping the kids off in the morning and turned on my blinker to move into the left lane in order to make the left turn lane (not into the parking lot) that would take me out of the lot. Office Aubrey motioned me over to the curb and chastised me for my action. I was too stunned by this to explain that I was actually going out the correct exit. He didn’t leave me room to defend myself anyway.

The other day my husband drove me to pick up our daughter at school after her driving lesson. He drove into the buses only driveway, against my protests that he was going to get in trouble from the school policeman. He said, look around — there were cars parked and standing everywhere along the “allegedly no cars allowed” driveway. Officer Aubrey was nowhere to be seen, although his squad car was right next to our car.

So I’m annoyed about that. The man needs to be consistent. If he picks on a lone woman in a Camry, shouldn’t he be out there telling the men and women driving their SUVs and minivans that they are not allowed to park or drive in the sign-posted buses only driveway? I think it’s a power thing. He can intimidate me but not a crowd of parents. It worries me that he might be picking on the shy high school students rather than dealing with the more aggressive students. And If the Rate my Teachers website can be trusted, here’s an example of his poor judgment, this time directed at a student.

You can see him “in action” in the following YouTube video of this “Senior Prank”. He made a judgment call - “I’m not going after [the modified streakers]. It’s senior prank.” Just like he makes judgment calls about carpool lines - I’m not picking on anyone when there is a crowd. I’m just intimidating the loners.

So yesterday morning a Verizon FiOS guy came by and installed FiOS to our house. It went smoothly enough and the technician was nice enough. I guess my recent rash of Comcast issues has left me with a bitter taste in my mouth when it comes to cable techs. The Verizon guy did comment on the bird’s nest of telephone wires in the ceiling of the basement though. He thought it would be a problem, but when he hooked up the phones everything seemed to be working fine. He’d forgotten an extra HDMI cable, so returned about an hour after he left and hooked up our second HD tv.

At 2:30 when the kids weren’t home yet, I picked up the phone to see if I’d missed a message, and there as no dial tone. Here we go again, I thought. It was like it was Christmas Day and my favorite present didn’t work correctly. I’d had such high hopes in Verizon. I was about to call Verizon when Clare and Andrew walked in the door. Clare shouted that we needed to run back to school so she could turn in a permission slip and check for a NYC field trip with her art class. Andrew stopped me on the steps with the news that his shiny new fancy cell phone had been stolen.

Let’s stop here and review my reaction to that news. A good mother would have sat down and said something like, “Oh no Andrew! That’s terrible. I know you liked that phone a lot. You must feel just awful.” I am not a good mother. I closed my eyes, took a breath and said, “You’ll have to buy the next one - and it will be $150 instead of $50 this time.” What an ass I am! He obviously was hurting and I just made it worse.

So I took Clare to school to hand in her check and permission slip. On the way she wondered why I was so upset about the phones (Andrew’s cell and our Verizon issue). She said that if that’s what got me angry I was a lucky person - meaning, I suppose, that I had no real issues about which to be angry. Of course she had a point. She’s pretty cool that way.

When we got back home I did let Andrew know I felt sorry that his phone was stolen, and that he must feel awful. Of course it was too late, the damage was done, but perhaps it made him feel a little better. Maybe?

I then called Verizon about the phones being out:

Verizon (very cheerful male synthesized voice): Thank you for calling Verizon your Broadband and communications company! Para continuar en español la prensa 2. For Billing press 1. For Internet press 2 for everything else, press 3.

Me: [Pressed 3]

V erizon (very cheerful female synthesized voice): Please say or type your ten digit telephone number.

Me: 301-555-5555 (not really my telephone number of course - but I did tell Verizon the real one)

Verizon: Thank you! You said 301-555-5855 Is this correct?!

Me: No

Verizon: Oh, I’m sorry! Please say or type your ten digit telephone number again!

Me: 301-555-5555

Verizon: Thank you! You said 301-555-5555! Is this correct?

Me: Yes

Verizon: Great. Just wait a moment until I pull up your records.

Me:

Verizon: How may I help you today? Say phone for telephone problems, Internet for Internet problems or TV for television problems.

Me: Phone

Verizon: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that you are having phone problems. What is the problem? If you have no dial tone, say: No dial tone.

Me: No dial tone.

Verizon: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. Let’s see if we can troubleshoot your problem. Ok, many phone problems are because of faulty wiring…(at this point I was not paying attention because I saw medium sized dog trotting up the middle of the street. I wondered where its owner was. As the dog got closer thought, perhaps it wasn’t a dog after all. Maybe it was a huge opossum (it had no hair on its tail) or a coyote (it looked like a scruffy dog, but was not as big as I assumed coyotes to be)

Me: FOX!

Verizon: I think you said box. Is that correct? I’m afraid I don’t understand.

Me: FOX! CLARE THERE IS A VOX OUTSIDE!!!

Verizon: Can you repeat that? I didn’t understand. Or press 3 for an agent.

Me: [pressed three]

Clare: Wow. Mom a fox. It’s trembling. What’s wrong? [grabbing camera and heading towards door]

Verizon (human male voice): Hello, how may I help you today

Me: No! Clare don’t go outside. It looks sick.

Verizon: I’m sorry?

Me: Oh, sorry. There is a scary looking animal outside. I’m calling because my phones have no dial tone.

Verizon: I see here that you just had it installed two days ago.

Me: No, it was installed two hours ago

Verizon: Hmm, let me run some tests. Hold on.

Me: OK. [looking out window and addressing Clare] Oh no, its on the porch. I need to call animal control. Maybe it has rabies.

Verizon: It seems that the problem is inside your house. There may be some faulty wiring. Let’s do some troubleshooting.

Me: Oh my God! It looks really sick. And scary looking.

Verizon: Do you think this scary animal might have damaged the phone wires?

Me: No, I need to call animal control. It might have rabies and I can’t because my other phones don’t work.

Verizon: Let’s do some troubleshooting…..

Me: Clare - where is it now?

Clare: In the backyard.

Verizon: If you need to go and call about this animal, I understand. Just call us back and say agent.

Me: Yeah, that would make sense.

So it turned out it probably has the mange (and not rabies) according to the “Wildlife nuisance” number I dialed. The very calm man on the phone told me not to worry, don’t feed it and call back if it was aggressive.

Note: I searched Mangy Fox on google and found that in July 2004 a mysterious creature was roaming Maryland. It turned out to be a mangy fox and not, in fact, a chupacabra

Note 2: Our phones now work. The tech came back and played with the nest of phone wires (he’d previously commented on). After a couple of tries it all worked fine. To be on the safe side, I opted for the wire insurance plan Verizon offers.

The day mom comes back has finally arrived. I was sitting up here working this morning and the R.E.M song, Don’t Go Back to Rockville came on the radio. I had to laugh. Maybe the bedroom has grown accustomed to me and wants me to stick around.

The dishwasher repairman stopped by today and for $65 did nothing but make an appointment to come back. He was a nice guy, great with Dad - even after Dad yelled at me to not pay anything until the repairman came back and finished the job. Interesting - Dad was an appliance repairman for 40 some years. He should understand.

Dad survived a hot dog. I’ve been reluctant to buy him one after his near-death experience with a hamburger. But he likes them and I grew tired of cooking big meals a number of days ago. We’ve been eating leftovers. (well, I’ve been sneaking out…)

Went to the Elgin Public House last night with my sister-in-law, Carol, and then we stopped at the Martini Room. What is it about Elgin that makes it so much more friendly than Bethesda? Not that I go to bars in Bethesda much, but I’ve never been treated so kindly in that town as I was last night.