If you’re a parent, you spend a good part of your waking hours as a taxi service. The hours stink. There are no benefits. Tips are terrible. Yet, you pick up, drop off, and wait. Repeat.

Piper and I were shuttling Sissy tonight to a choir concert. It was raining. The parking lot was crowded. There was a tornado watch. Dinner had been rushed. Traffic was a nightmare. You get the idea. On our way to the concert we’d picked up Daddy at the Metro. He was walking Sissy inside while Piper and I waited in the warm car.

Piper watched the other parents in the parking lot doing the same. We saw more than one parent running after a kid with a McDonald’s sack.

“Where’s everyone going?” Piper asked.

“Probably doing the same as us, P. Picking up. Dropping off. Rushing around,” I said.

“Where are they all coming from?”

“Work. Downtown. This is a tough time to get anywhere. Especially in this weather.”

“But why are they working?” Piper asked.

“We have to work. Daddy and I go to our jobs. We get paid and then we can take care of you. Food, clothes, toys, choir concerts. It all costs money.”

“Wow,” Piper said, “that sounds like a serious amount of responsibility. What a meany world!”