Around The World In 80 Days

by John Christmann

While driving my kids to their various soccer games the other day I did a rough calculation in my head. During my lifetime I can expect to spend close to 1900 hours driving my kids to and from their various activities, including school. This is almost 80 days in which I will be fully employed as an unpaid chauffer. I was surprised to say the least—not that I will be spending 80 days in the car, but that I could actually do this calculation in my head while navigating to an obscure soccer field in an unfamiliar town.

To put this in context, here is another staggering statistic which I uncovered from a study put together, no doubt, by someone else who had nothing else to think about while driving in the car: Relative to the 80 days I will spend driving, I can only expect to spend about 15 days of my life laughing. It is pretty conclusive then, that driving kids all around to soccer games and the like is not a barrel of laughs.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy being in the car with my kids, and it is nothing if not informative. It is in the car where I learned, for example, that my kids hate the music I listen to and my singing even more. But it is during those teeth-gnashing attempts to rendezvous with a specific team at a precise hour at a poorly-named, cleverly hidden soccer field that I unwittingly lose patience. My oldest son harshly brought this to my attention one day as we crept behind a painfully slow Buick driven by an elderly woman whose head barely reached the top of the steering wheel. Desperately wanting to make the start of his game, my frustrated son blurted out uncontrollably, “It’s the pedal on the right, grandma! Step on it!” Honestly, I don’t know where he gets it.

The problem is that my kids are almost always late to their games. This is because with three kids playing on three different teams, transportation has become a logistical nightmare. It is not uncommon to have all three playing on the same day at the same time in three different towns. Since there are at most two drivers in the house, this means that one of our children can expect to be shivering alone on a field somewhere waiting for a ride from their delinquent parent that was not there to see the game. Other days are more manageable, but difficult: Dash to a field with two, drop off one, dash to another field with one, pick up the third, dash back to the first field because the first left his cleats in the car, then on to a third field to drop off the second and back to the first field to pick up the third, and finally a round trip to all the fields to find the one child that is still missing. Like I said, my kids are almost always late to their games.

This year as soccer season started I vowed to be much more organized. After I received their lengthy schedules, I dusted off an old text book on queuing theory and constructed a linear programming model in three variables to plan my routes. I was surprised to say the least—not that I could construct a linear programming model, but that I actually owned a text book on queuing theory. For their first game I put the times and distances in the model and let the computer fly. I let it run all night. In the morning, the monitor displayed the results: Windows is not responding. Please restart your computer, it said.

Undeterred, I printed and taped together over a dozen Google maps of the surrounding towns and hung the unwieldy mosaic on the kitchen wall. I carefully marked all of the destinations and possible routes using colored push pins connected with string. Then I stood back to ponder the quilted map littered with pinheads. I felt like I was in the briefing room of CSI: New Jersey.
“I hope you catch your killer soon,” my wife said. Then, after scolding me for pockmarking the wall behind my makeshift map with pin holes, she asked, “What exactly are you doing?”
“I am trying to figure out how I am going to get the kids to their soccer games this weekend.” I said.
“Why don’t you try driving?” she said.
I ignored her good humored jab, and tried to explain the complexity of the situation.
“Here is a novel idea,” she said, “Why don’t you use your considerable logistics skills to arrange a carpool?”
“I would,” I responded, trying to deflate the obvious simplicity of her solution, “but no one wants me to drive because I lose kids.”

At my daughter’s next practice, to which I arrived late because I had to drop my son off first, I noticed a few of the moms chatting animatedly on the sideline. As I approached I could hear a whirlwind of conversation. They were talking over each other without breathing. It sounded something like this:
"If you could pick up Susie on Tuesday I will take Mary on Saturday and then on Sunday I can do both ways if you can do the following Sunday. . .Tommy has a football game on Sunday but I could just take the girls home and you could pick them up whenever . . . Why don’t I just pick up Tommy when I pick up Michael, then drop him off and bring Mary back with me to the game . . . Perfect, Emily has a game at the same field . . . Great! Great! Call me! Great! Bye!”
And just like that they scattered to their cars and drove away.

At the practices for my two sons I was more aggressive. I quickly jumped into the throng of ladies arranging rides for the upcoming game, and although I wasn’t able to keep up with them, I managed to obtain some well-conceived orders. I was impressed by their ability to arrange things so quickly, so thoroughly, and with so little input from me. They were living breathing linear programming models, and the only thing they crashed was a little of my self-esteem.

As the weekend approached, my wife expressed concern. We had some conflicting errands that would make getting the kids to their various games more difficult than usual.
“No worries, it’s all under control,” I told her smugly. “I arranged a carpool.” I then went on to explain my side of the clever arrangements, pointing with emphasis at the makeshift map.
“I just need to bring the boys and a bunch of their teammates home from their games at the Lower High School Field on South Street in Northfield, and then pick up six of the girls and bring them all to their game at the Middle School Upper Field on High Street in Middletown, which is just off the highway near the Lower School Field on Center Street where they played last year. It’s easy! Just two trips!”
“How are you going to fit all of those kids in the car?” asked my wife.
I stared long and hard at the useless map riddled with push pins.
“I have no idea.” I replied.

I have never driven a Winnebago before—I just never had the desire. But the rental agent assured me that it was just like driving a car. “Drive slowly and make wide turns,” he said, looking high up to me through the open driver’s window. And then, as I pulled away he added, “Oh, and steer clear of icebergs.” Leaving the lot I felt like I should be wearing Bermuda shorts and a fishing hat jingling with lures.

But even in a lumbering vehicle hindered by occasional snarls of traffic, several navigational corrections, and numerous drive-bys searching for side-by-side open parking spaces, I managed to arrive to the field in time to pick up my boys and their teammates. In fact, without the usual frenzy of cross town drop-offs and pick-ups I was able to catch a few minutes of their games, which they both won. Happily, I loaded up the Winnebago with excited boys and systematically dropped them off at their respective houses while simultaneously picking up the girls for their game. The Winnebago was a big hit with the kids and for once in the eyes of my children I was a fun, laughing Dad behind the wheel.

Now with the load of girls I efficiently headed out of town in the opposite direction and made my way to the field. We arrived just minutes before their game was to begin. There was no one there. No one.
“Where is everyone, Daddy?” asked my daughter.
I was perplexed. “I don’t know! Aren’t you playing the Middletown High Toppers?”
“No, Daddy, that’s next week! This week we are playing the Hightown Low Riders!”
All around the girls stood slack-jawed, staring at me as though I was wearing Bermuda shorts and a fishing hat. They understood the implication: the game was about to start and half of their team was in a Winnebago at the wrong field.

On my way to the Upper Lower School Field in downtown Hightown, I had time to revise my calculations. It now seems that over my lifetime I can expect to spend at least one more day in the car driving my children to soccer. I was surprised to say the least—not that I was again late to a soccer game, but that for once I was laughing about it.