50 is the new 40. Red is the new black. And, apparently, a preschool in Frisco, TX is the new Harvard. I’m assuming you guys have read Mel’s account of the great preschool campout, so I’ll spare you the details. I always suspected that parenting would involve going to any extreme to provide the best for my kids. However, I assumed that effort would be required for say, Julliard or MIT, not preschool.
For months, I listened to Melanie worry aloud over the various stresses related to getting into this preschool. Her original plan involved camping out alone for the entire duration of the event. I always knew I would end up in the line at some point. No matter how ridiculous I thought the process was, I knew I would pitch in if needed. By the end of the process, three of us had taken turns waiting in the line. I guess it really does take a village – or at least three people willing to sit around with a bunch of strangers on a Sunday.
My turn on the line started in the early evening. I had grand plans of reading books and catching up on email while I was there. Unfortunately, it was too dark to read and too cold to do much typing. That left me with one option for killing time: small talk with the other crazy people in the line. Fortunately, these were my people. Not only did one of the Aggies in the line bring up power strips and several extension cords, there was free wireless access coming from inside the building. So nearly everyone in line had power and internet access for their laptops. To top it off, one of the couples at the front of the line brought up a homemade propane heater. Not too shabby for a preschool line. We were one grill and one margarita machine away from a tailgate party.
For the most part, we talked about the ridiculousness of the registration process. At some point, at least half the people in line started watching the Mavs game online, while the rest of us found other ways to occupy our time.
What am I missing? Oh, that’s right. The propane heater. While the propane heater was nice, it did have one fatal flaw. Each time the wind gusted, the burners would catch fire. And we had no shortage of strong wind that night. The only way to stop the fire was to turn the tanks off and restart the heater. I lost track of how many times the heater caught fire throughout the night. I do, however, remember one particular instance. This time, the woman who brought the heater up for us actually CAUGHT FIRE while relighting the heater. I didn’t realize what was going on at first. One of the other people in the line told her “Hey. You’re on fire!” We all thought he meant it like “Way to go! You’re on fire! Great job!” He didn’t mean it that way. He meant that her sweatshirt was aflame. She was literally on fire. Thinking quickly, she proceeded to put the fire out by beating her arm against her husband’s highly flammable down jacket. Somehow, the fire went out without spreading and the woman got back into her sleeping bag, completely unfazed by the whole thing.
At the beginning of the ordeal, the whole idea of waiting in line for a preschool annoyed me. We are talking about preschool after all, not medical school or ACL tickets (I kid, I kid.). After spending some time in line with a bunch of people who were way nerdier than me, and a woman who seemed about as troubled by setting herself on fire as most people would over getting a hangnail, I decided it was all for the best. I thought Melanie was crazy when she first told me about the insanity involved in this process. Having seen it, I’m fairly certain there are moms who would gladly wait 48-72 hours to get a spot at this place. In fact, I think some of them might be willing to participate in a last-mom-standing fight to the death for it. Don’t believe me? Try cutting in line around 11:45p.m. – just before they hand out numbers and let people inside for the night – and see what happens. Chances are, you’ll be introduced to the business end of a homemade propane heater. These moms don’t play around. Preschool is serious business in these parts.
