“I want all unmarked bills and a jet to Cuba!”

I love being a dad, but nothing prepared me for how “challenging” school mornings can be. It’s sometimes like a hostage negotiation:

As precious minutes tick away, we’ve got to navigate people’s feelings, running on-the-spot emotional profiles on all parties involved; we’re frantically slipping food in and out of bags; there’s generally one person who speaks grievances on behalf of the rest of the group; there’s a little scrappy Lonewolf guy running around creating all kinds of minor-but-ill-timed mischief, threatening the whole operation; there’s a car idling outside, ready to transport people away; and just when you think you’re going to make the deadline, someone insults someone else, and you receive a scrawled note under a door saying the terms have changed.

Or something along those lines.