It’s no secret that I don’t enjoy driving TheKid to school in the morning when he’s missed the bus.

TheKid misses the bus daily. He doesn’t even try anymore. Hubs doesn’t mind driving him, so it works out for both of them, and Hubs enjoys the time in the car with TheKid.

But then come the days when, for one reason or another, Hubs can’t drive TheKid to school–and I have to. With 10 minutes’ notice.

Today was one of those days.

Mornings are a busy time for me. By 8 AM today I showered, made coffee, prayed, woke TheKid, cooked the bacon, woke TheKid, packed a lunch, woke TheKid, measured bags of popcorn and pretzels for TheKid’s lunches for the rest of the week, tossed in a load of laundry and made a batch of chocolate-chip cookies. I wanted to get that laundry out on the clothesline and make my grocery list before 9:00 Mass. But at 7:45 I found out that I was driving.

That’s at least 20 minutes out of my schedule right there, 10 of which are spent arguing fighting tooth and nail negotiating over the choice of radio station (another point on which Hubs is more flexible than me).

So I was grumpy. Until I reached the corner with the second-last stop light before school.

There’s a crossing guard at that light, and TheKid’s school arrival time is not in sync with the public school’s, so the crossing guard is just waiting around for the next bunch of kids when I reach that intersection.

He fills the time pointing at drivers, then giving them a thumbs-up as he stands there with his cool mirrored sunglasses, his reflective yellow jacket, and his STOP sign.

In other words, he’s The Fonz, Crossing Guard.

And it’s pretty much impossible to stay grumpy when The Fonz greets you on your way to school.