It’s hard enough returning to the routines of school so soon after Labor Day — the getting the kids up and out before eight in the morning, the scramble to scramble eggs for that all-important fortifying breakfast, the two hours of picking out an outfit — but that’s nothing compared to the annual Invasion of the Park Slope Body-Snatchers!
You can’t see these evil villains, but they’re there. And they’ve already snatched dozens of Park Slopers, transforming them from laid back, convivial summer people into stressed out, pushy, neurotic PARENTS.
After the first drop-off of the year, Smartmom ran into a friend who just last week was wearing shorts, reeking of SPF 45 and regaling her with tales of a family vacation in Tuscany.
On this day, she engaged Smartmom in a long conversation about the pros and cons of the John Hopkins University Talent Search for gifted kids and her middle schooler’s SAT scores (since when do middle schoolers take the SATs?).
The body-snatched person may look normal (whatever that is), but don’t be fooled. Smartmom waved at a friend in front of Back to the Land on Seventh Avenue.
“How was your summer?” she asked cheerfully. But her friend spoke with desperation in her voice: “Do you know when the Department of Education is releasing last year’s standardized test scores?”
Smartmom saw another friend nursing a chai latte at ConnMuffCo before pick-up. Last week, she was sitting on her stoop sipping an iced mocha latte frappuccino macchiato and reading the September Vogue. Today, she seemed edgy, distracted, a tad tense.
“How was your Labor Day weekend?” Smartmom ventured.
“Fine,” she said, but Smartmom knew her friend had been snatched.
In fact, all that Smartmom’s anxious friend wanted to do was compare and contrast Upper Carroll and the area’s “hot” public middle school. The strange thing is: her kid is only in second grade.
At pick-up in the bus backyard of PS 321, a woman, Smartmom barely knows, recited a list of all the books her third-grader had read over the summer vacation, which included titles by Lemony Snicket, J.K Rowling, a smidgen of Dostoyevsky and the first act of “Hamlet.”
It was obvious that this woman had also been snatched and she couldn’t help herself. Nor could any of the others.
Smartmom and the Oh So Feisty One took Sixth Avenue back to the apartment in an effort to avoid Seventh Avenue, where the snatchers were obviously lurking in droves.
“Mommy, I want to go to Maggie Moo’s,” OSFO said of her favorite ice cream parlor. But Smartmom imagined being snatched while ordering OSFO’s Very Yellow Marshmallow cone. Maybe it was something in the ice cream.
“No, no, I have some ice cream in the freezer,” she said, rushing her disappointed daughter to the relative safety of home (could Maggie Moo’s be in cahoots with the Body Snatchers? Smartmom was not willing to take that chance.)
Back at the apartment, Hepcat greeted OSFO and Smartmom.
“So how was your first day of school?” he said, looking anxious, his brow was dotted with sweat. “Shouldn’t you start your homework? It’s very important that you start your homework the minute you walk in the door.”
Smartmom and OSFO looked at one another, wondering what had gotten into Hepcat — or is that really Hepcat?
“Then you need to read for 20 minutes. Make that an hour. No maybe two hours and afterwards practice your violin.”
OSFO glared at her Dad. “But I don’t play the violin,” she said.
Hepcat was not himself: “Er, I mean the piano. Practice the piano.”
The irony is that OSFO is nothing if not the Perfect Student. In fact, she was the only one in the family who was actually looking forward to the first day of school.
She had her outfit picked out a month ago and two-dozen #2 Ticonderoga pencils sharpened and ready to go. Teen Spirit, by comparison, avoided thinking of school altogether, despite the thousand pages of summer reading he needed to get done by opening day.
But with Hepcat apparently body-snatched, Smartmom realized that she was next. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of her life, as Bogart would say. The Body Snatchers would get her, too. And she’d be obsessing about Teen Spirit’s 10th-grade report card, the PSATs, the SATs, and his college essay. Come to think of it, is he doing anything to earn social service credits for his college applications?
Smartmom could even start stressing about OSFO’s middle-school admissions and whether she was invited to enough birthday parties.
But Smartmom would be back to normal by next summer. Just like everyone else. Then the family could enjoy blissful days and nights on the beach in Sag Harbor and on the farm in California without once thinking about school. They could even talk about books, writing, and music without a word about homework.
But for now, the Body Snatchers were here to stay, transforming eager moms and dads into hyper, over-determined PARENTS.
Remember: be careful at Maggie Moo’s.
