At the risk of sounding unkind, I need to discuss this subject, not in order to vent, but in an attempt to study the creatures that inhabit the outer grounds of my childrens’ HIGH PERFORMING MAGNET SCHOOL.  Don’t forget it, anyone.  No parents would actually state that overtly (false modesty is a perfected art among the upper middle class), but they shout it louder than ever with the revs of their Lexi engines, which form the sparkling sea of abundance, that celebrates the consumption of pricey fossil fuels at every pick up and drop off on each school day.  They will say it with the swagger on the dirty little path to the next PTA meeting, and in the way they elbow you at the volunteer sign-up table or when they tell you that that OTHER school has a lot of kids on the “free and reduced lunch program.”  Normal, boring, ordinary magnet school parent behaviors, right?

What peeks my interest is that I found that most of these turbo mommies can be likened to certain animals.  Not in the Native American way of having an “animal totem,” which they embody spiritually, but these beings actually resemble animals as if their parents were extraordinary pets of humans that were invited to sit at the dinner table.  They received scholarships and went on to meet and marry other similarly bred animals and produced high-functioning, grant-worthy human-like animal children who eventually found themselves married to, yes, other animals, working for Cisco, living in million dollar tract housing and driving their children across town to their lottery assigned placement at the magnet school.  This is where I come in.

I was taken aback lately by an upright, Caucasian toad who stands daily in front of my child’s classroom, waiting to pick up her little land and water creature, I mean child.  The toad (I assume that she is actually a toad living a double-life as a well-to-do woman) and I cross paths often as we have children together in two grade levels and they attend the same snooty violin school  (Disclaimer:  My husband and I are theater arts bohemians.  Music is more important to us than algebra.  Not sure what the toad’s motivation is other than that the violin school goes nicely with her brand new Chrysler 300.  But honestly, I have no good reason to assume that she lacks the passion for music that we have.)  After all these interactions, one might expect that we could be, possibly, best friends, good acquaintances, or at least motivated hello-wavers.  Unfortunately, the toad has communicated her unwillingness to communicate with “my kind” (Does she hate me because I’m human?), by averting her eyes from my sweat suit clad slovenliness and, when unable to do so, she croaks a cold, guttural “huheye.”  What’s even more interesting is that her sister in coldness is a Channel bespectacled Gecko:  a lankily lean, wiry, curve-backed critter, with an over-dyed ebony bob that highlights the unsightly pallor of her face (a convincing human disguise, indeed).  They stand and stare at the other less established parents who have yet to cup their blood sucking three-tiered jaws into the host that is the public school system.  A good 40% of their conversation is concealed in whispers, so unless they are planning a heist of Best Buy or Costco, they are likely to be talking badly about them.  But perhaps I’m too cynical.

Please don’t get me wrong.  There are wonderfully lovely creatures of the PTA, too.  The smiling salamander is an absolute sweetheart.  At first, her manic grin in the teacher’s direction at Back-to-School Night frightened me.  I thought her to be a sycophantic, Botox-frozen human being.  But I was wrong.  Her wiry thin build was not a result of too much time in Pole Dancing Class at the Bayside Club.  The shiny, over-tight, wet look to her skin was not the result of over-toning or body butter.  It is clearly the slick slime of her actual salamander skin.  She is a nice creature.  Not predatory.  Plant-eating (I’m certain I can verify this).  And she’s only annoying when she shows up in your pool.  If that’s not a salamander, I don’t know what is.  The rodent PTA president is pretty nice for a rodent PTA president.  She still smiles a cold mousey grin even after you quit her fundraiser because she kept redoing your letters citing her “10 years in the corporate world” as the reason for her superior writing capabilities and necessary interventions.  (Never mind that I was the star of my sophomore high school English class.)

Perhaps I mistake these (we’ll call them) humans for animals because of their behavior:  cut-throat, survival oriented, and scrapping their way to the top of the food chain.  Or they exhibit their beastly behaviors BECAUSE they are animals.  PTA volunteer Veronica Tomsen (please note that it took every ounce of restraint I have to use an alias for her) resembles a bear cub.  Despite her ferocity, she is actually kind of cute.  When she works with you on a project, she growls and swipes her little bitty claws at you.  You don’t feel the danger of the moment, but you fear what damage she could do with a few years and several more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches under her belt.  And, above all, she’s probably pissed that she’s the mama bear in her household, but remains a bear cub in the world at large.  In any case, the primal swats of catty behavior seem more animal-like than human.  Perhaps, they are simply the more animal side of human.  Hmmn…

Moreover, I should probably not be so reactive and sensitive to these behaviors or I may start to resemble an animal that may not be so cute as a little toad, lizard or rat.  I wonder which animal my behavior connects me to?  I would love to be something friendly, easy-going, and lovable like the eucalyptus eating koala.  Or maybe even something glamorous, though slightly useless, like the flamingo.  Though with the excess bit of weight I’ve collected in the past few years and due to the fact that I often pick up my kid from the drive-through lane instead of getting out and walking, I think I might be called a sloth or (goodness, no) a cow.  Here’s the scariest part:  Do they know what animal I secretly am?

Maybe I should take on the persona of my own daughter, clearly a golden retriever, and let my friendly, fluffy exuberance encourage the friendlier sides of their instincts. How ‘bout on Monday, I run up to everyone and lick their faces?

Watch the video related to Gecko

Me (and in some videos, some other hackers) FTL hacking MKW Worldwide. … mkw mario kart wii bike hack hacks hacker hacking codes cheat cheats code ocarina gecko homebrew home brew mod modifier bomb bob-omb banana mushroom green red blue spiny shell mega triple gold golden star starman bullet bill thunder cloud thundercloud lightning pow block blooper funky kong donkey 9999 31337 1337 vr i1337 i1338 4TL FTL hax speed peel fake item box worldwide regional friends flame runner wifi wi-fi …

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About Author

Greta Koenigin is a retired high school teacher who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, 3 children, and unruly cat. She enjoys live theater, reading, and decorating. She writes of her adventures, at home and at-large, on her blog:
savingprivatemommy.com