Yesterday I taught high school drama at a school that I had never worked at before. The students were well behaved and polite, the courtyard resembled an Italian piazza and the day went by quickly. As I head out to my car at 1:50 and I see that there is a black Toyota Scion parked directly behind me.
At first I'm not concerned and think that someone has just hopped out to grab something... I look around and don't really see anyone and I'm a little confused because the Scion is also blocking in the car next to me as well. As I get closer I realize there is a note on my car. It reads: Please do not call to have me move my car. I leave at 5:30. Thanks.
Needless to say I am shocked. I'm not sure whether to be mad or laugh. There are two connected parking lots in front of the school. When I had arrived in the morning there were no more spaces labeled visitor so I pulled into the second smaller parking lot where there was a row of un-numbered spots. Thinking that these were open for use I parked there. Clearly this was not the case and whoever's spot I was in was not happy!
Despite the directions of the note I go inside and explain my dilemma to the secretary. She's super nice and understanding and tells me "it's water under the bridge honey," and that the teacher I was subbing for should have given me her parking space number. The secretary makes an all call over the PA system for the owner of the black Scion to go move her/his car.
I head back outside and about this time the security officer comes by on his golf cart. He informs me of who owns the car and tells me that he knew she was pretty upset. He mentions that he is not supposed to let teachers park illegally but that they get mad if he says anything to them! Suppressing the urge to yell at him to do his job correctly I instead suggest painting numbers on this row so that people know they are reserved. He tells me that they've just faded. Uh huh. Right. That entire row of numbers magically faded.
He then proceeds to tell me a long story about having to paint numbers in the student parking lot two summers ago... Realizing that the teacher is not coming I begin to inch away and head back inside.
Now that we've pinpointed the owner (thanks worthless security officer) the secretary, after trying several numbers, finally reaches the teacher and tells her she must move her car. By this point I am pretty mad at the fact that this lady is literally being ridiculous. As I head back out for the 3rd time I decide that if she doesn't come out I am going to call the police and tell them there is a car illegally parked behind me that needs to be towed (I checked on my phone as I walked out... you can do this!).
By this time the actual teacher parked, in her legitimate spot, who's car is blocked in is in her car looking disgruntled. I see that said teacher has sent 3 students to move her car for her. Well guess what? they can't get it started. They call this infamous teacher and finally she is forced to come out and deal with it herself.
Upon her arrival the first thing she says to me is "you need to pass on the message to all the subs not to park in my spot." What?! Lady! Shaper of young minds... setter of examples... are you serious?! In a much nicer tone I inform her that she should let the drama teacher know that she should have given me her spot number.
To quickly wrap up the story, her battery was dead. Of course. We hailed someone down to jump it. They left. Her car died. We honked and hailed back the jumper lady. We jumped it again and she had to send the students in to get her things so she could keep the car running and head home, ultimately cutting her day short. Karma's a bitch. She did eventually become apologetic to everyone involved and seemed slightly embarrassed. Finally at about 2:40 I got to head home.
Just another adventure in the life of a substitute. :)
p.s. If you missed yesterday's Feature Friday scroll down to check it out!
Katie. That is ridiculous. Just reading this story made me so mad! How could she have been so hateful and spiteful? You seemed to show her a lot of grace just by not blowing up at her. Good job. :)
Posted by: haley grayless | March 7, 2010 at 06:07 PM