Ignorance != Stupidity

On Monday of this week, my wife was off-work for Lincoln's birthday. Her and I went together in her van to pick up one of our children from school. It was raining lightly. The parking lot at the school is small and there is a daily line of cars waiting. If you don't arrive early enough, the line sometimes extends out into the street and we ended up in this situation. As we crawled forward into position, the line stopped in such a way that we were halfway in and halfway out of the parking lot.

While sitting there talking and minding our own business, a woman with a large umbrella walked past our car and turned to look at us. She paused and approached my wife's driver side window. She was stopping to say something to us with a frown.

You do know that when you block the cross-walk like that, the teachers don't allow the kids to cross? she asked sardonically.

Embarrassed, my wife immediately began to put the car in reverse gear even though there wasn't any space behind us. Actually, I said, we didn't know that. And I honestly meant it as a "thank-you" and apology to this lady. Our kids don't walk home and usually Heather picks up the kids, so we really had no idea.

Sure you didn't, she said dismissively and turned to walk away.

Whoa! Hold up lady!

I managed to roll down my window and shout a Thank you and an assurance that we really did NOT know that. She didn't even slow down.

How hard is it to believe the possibility that when you see someone doing something wrong and that they are inconveniencing others that they are simply not aware that what they are doing is having this affect? Being rude to someone in response to some imagined wrong will only make them defensive and angry.

As I said, our kids don't walk home nor do they cross that walk so I've never been affected by this. We've only had a kid at this school for the last two years and I've never noted an announcement sent home by the school and as of a few months ago, I was employed by the district. We simply didn't know and had no reason to know.

Oh and in case you are wondering how it all turned out, by the time the bell rang and the kids were released, the line had inched forward enough that we were no longer blocking the cross-walk. I turned around to see if the car behind us would block the way, but apparently they have already been informed.

As you can tell, this encounter made me uncharacteristically upset, but I've vented here now and I feel a lot better. Thanks for listening!