This week I’ve had an unenviable but easy duty: morning gym carline. It basically involves arriving very early to campus and standing in the cold while the handful of students who park at the gym make their way into school.
I’m not clear what the purpose of the duty is other than to have a witness on the scene should two teenage drivers end up in a fender-bender (of devolve into early morning fisticuffs, but these kids are too sluggish that early to devolve into anything other than sleepy sluggards). I suspect it’s more about the optics—“we have people watching your kids!”—than anything else.
Regardless, it’s not hard. What is hard is getting up that extra fifteen or twenty minutes earlier to make it to the duty in time. That doesn’t seem like much, but anyone who has ever woken up even slightly earlier than normal will recognize the herculean effort required.
Now that I’m in the new house, my morning commute has tripled in length. What was once a relaxed, fifteen-minute drive is now a relaxed forty-five-minute drive. Ergo, yours portly must force his doughy, weary form out of the bed quite early.
That’s all the tedious build-up to this very simple video. On Monday morning a massive crow alighted atop a nearby lamppost while I kept my lonely vigil. It seemed as though he were joining me for this duty, fulfilling alongside his human companion the responsibilities of monitoring the children as they arrived to the back parking lot.
He also had a fantastic “caw”; give it a listen here:
I know for whom the crow caws. He caws for thee!
Happy Friday!
—TPP
