Grandma Flunks Pre-School

We were all scrubbed, dressed, fed, and pottied so Bel and Grandma headed off for toddler group this lovely Friday morning. An hour and a half of supervised playtime at the Community College, how much trouble can we get into to anyway? And let me say now, I have been before and they did not throw me out. Don't tell my grandkids but I was not so good at following rules when I was in school, and apparently time has not improved me a bit.

Small group time came and Bel is wandering around the room and I am looking out the window. The backdoor opens and out she slides so after her I go. The yard has pre-school in it, it's their time outside. We are assaulted by several short people screaming "babies, babies, there's babies out here." Lions and tigers and babies, oh my. Some small person informs me that babies are not allowed only big kids. Bad Grandma says, "what big kids? I don't see anyone but you guys," and I begin backing towards the door. It's locked, from the inside. Okay, it's going to be "Lord of the Flies" all over again and they think I'm Piggy. Bel snatched her arm away and made a run for the back forty without me. Good thing there's a fence. Ms. Teacher person runs over waving my father's finger at me and repeating, "no babies, it's toddler time." The aforementioned small boy informs her he is almost 5 and not a toddler. He's getting no respect from anyone here.

"Door locked," I mumble, and she says "run after her," running is not what I do best so I just shrugged and mumbled more "can't run" and pursued the grandchild with my usual flat out slow saunter, irritating I'm certain but actually all I'm capable of after about 5 seconds. I catch Bel and give her old fireman's sling over my shoulder and we amble down the walk. Some weirdo guy from the parking lot with a dog leash leans over the fence and says "put a lifejacket on them, and this leash and you can tow them down the creek that way!" "What the hell," I say to myself? Now I'm trapped with my youngest granddaughter in a David Lynch flick. I walk up to the fence and put on my best crabby butt face and yell "Beat it, weirdo." And he backs off.

We get to the door and by this time Ms. Teacher has found a key and with shaking hands is apologizing and trying to get the door open but not very sucessfully. Someone opens it from the inside, I say "thanks," to both door openers and return to the land of sanity. Bel has to potty, the door is locked. Locked by someone from the pre-school side who forgot to unlock it. Oops, there is pee on my shoulder. We get inside and make the rest of the deposit in the proper receptacle. Miss Bel has been working diligently on her potty skills and she is very upset by this turn of events. She wants to go home and I say sure and I tell her I just bought her lots of new clean panties and she can have her pick at home and how would she like to go to Mickey D's on the way. So being true Americans we balmed our sorrows with chicken nuggets and a tiny cheese burger. When we got home she selected some nice loud pink undies, I got a clean shirt, and we took our fat burgers out onto the deck and had a lunch in the swing. Home Sweet Home.