This is Just to Say

I would like to announce that for the second year in a row I have failed to fill out the proper paperwork for After School Car Pool Pick up at Our Fine School. That means that when I go to Jack's classroom's open house on Tuesday, I will not be handed a marigold yellow sign that has Jack's name and classroom printed on it along with the members of our car pool. The teacher's assistant will take this opportunity to raise an eyebrow at me or sigh a small sigh of exasperation. Didn't I know I was to have handed in the paperwork weeks ago?

Well, yeah, sort of. But here's the problem. Instead of sending me a form in the mail to be filled out and sent back to Our Fine School's lovely administrative assistant, they sent me an e-mail. "For important information about the 2008-09 school year, please go to ourfineschool.org."

I am not capable of taking that step, largely because I know that it isn't a single step, it is a multitude of steps. I must take the steps downstairs to my husband's study and dig around in his morass of papers and gas receipts to find the letter from Our Fine School instructing us how to log on to ourfineschool.org. Then I will have to take the steps back upstairs, attempt to log on, and then attempt to track down the forms where you write down your kid's name and the names of all the other kids you'll be picking up after school.

Finding these forms can not be done logically or intuitively on ourfineschool.org. It only happens magically, under a full moon, with Mercury rising.

Back when Jack was in second grade, the folks at Our Fine School simply mailed the forms with the 300 other pages of material they send you at the beginning of August. Why they stopped this practice, other than to thwart my attempts to car pool, I have no idea. But it was a mistake. Send me a form in the mail to fill out and send back to you, I'll do it, and I'll do it on time, for one simple reason: I buy very cool stamps and I like to use them. I am like a five-year-old girl in a new party dress when it comes to stamps. I believe everyone looks at my stamped mail and thinks, 'The person who used these stamps is interesting and creative, and I wish I knew her.'

There is no love to be had from going to ourfineschool.org. Nobody's grandmother is waiting for me there, smiling and murmuring, "Oh, look at those shoes she has on and that pretty dress--why, she looks so grown up!" There is only heartbreak as you wander around the Web site wondering where those stupid forms are hiding.

So on Tuesday, I will have to admit to the unsmiling teacher's assistant that I had no luck finding the forms and laugh nervously, saying, "I guess you're hearing that from all the parents, huh?" And she'll look at me disapprovingly and say, "No, everyone else's parents got their forms in on time."

You know what's going to make her really unhappy? When she finds out that I'm the room parent this year.

That maniacal laughing you hear is mine.