Do I Know You?

Do you ever feel like you know people that you don't really know? Not the celebrities who have their lives plastered all over everywhere for us to live vicariously through. I'm talking about the random, every day people that we "know" in some way. For example...

I spend hours, literally HOURS, doing carpool each day. Seriously, I spend close to 3 hours a day for my kid to go to school, but that's another story. There are several people I know through carpool. There is the "Twingles" nice white Suburban (oh, I want her truck so bad) lady. Why do I call her Twingles, you ask. Well, I shall tell you. She has the cutest bumper sticker that says "Twingles/ Twins and Another/ I'm a lucky mother" and I just think it is the cutest thing. Her twin boys are in kindergarten. I wanted to wave to her and say hi when I saw her school supply shopping at Wal-mart, but she has no clue who I am.

There is the new red Suburban lady who works near the rock quarry in Knightdale, less than a block from Krispy Kreme (that doesn't make their donuts at the shop and trucks them over from the Raleigh store) and Chick-fil-a. There is the teal MPV lady who has a kid in 3rd grade. She used to have the same trainer as I did and she read books while on the bike at the gym. That is until the gym closed down.

Of course, there is also the gold Lexus SUV lady who cut in front of everybody who had been waiting 30 minutes in line because she happened to pull up just as the security dude let the cars onto campus, but we won't talk about that because my mom taught me "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all," and so I shall remain silent. Thumper taught me that too, BTW. I also get a kick out of the silver Odyssey. It just makes me giggle to see someone else driving a car just like mine, with the same little magnet on the back. I want to wave at her and say "nice car" one day.

I can't forget to mention the green Sienna dad who gets off the same exit I do, then turns the other way. I really want to follow him home one day to see where he lives and then offer to carpool. Then again, would you want your kid to carpool with some nutso lady who followed you home just to ask if you want to carpool. Scratch that. Need another plan.

How on earth do I know what grade these kids are in, you ask. Carpool hang tags, of course. The school is so smart, your grade is the first digit of your carpool number. Kindergarten is 0--, and first grade is 1--, and so on. Most I can tell if they have boys or girls because we sit in the same spot each afternoon as we wait to start the slow crawl through the line. Actually we get there 30 minutes before school gets out, sit on a side street with our cars off and sweating our brains out with little siblings screaming for fruit snacks from the back seat, and wait for the magical whistle to start your engines. I may sit for 30 minutes on a side street to get to the front of the line, but I don't have to pay attention to the line in front of me moving, or not moving. I sit and wait, then get to the front of the line and sit and wait again for the kids to come out. It's cheaper to sit with the car off than on and creeping along for 20 minutes, and when I drove almost 90 miles a day for school, every idling moment counts.

So who do you know? Do you know the bank teller that deposits your check each pay day? Do you have your favorite grocery store checker-outer? The librarian that keeps your kids entertained for a few precious minutes for you to shut your eyes?

Maybe this afternoon I will get out of the car and introduce myself to these people. Or maybe not, I kind of like the mystery about them. Or maybe I like the mystery about me... if I don't prove I'm a nut case, it is just what they think they know about me.