Mothers around Pleasanton are displaying the familiar madness that appears every August.
For some, summer’s end can’t come too soon; they crave six hours of quiet five days a week.
For others, 74 days of summer is not enough. These moms want more weeks without schedules full of homework and insane carpool trips.
Both groups are crazed.
I wouldn’t have believed one particularly appalling story of misbehaving moms if I hadn’t heard it from the women involved.
To protect their images as upstanding Pleasanton moms and contributing members of society, I’ve opted not to name those involved in the appalling behavior.
It was 2:30 p.m., Friday, Aug. 5, and several middle-school age children had planned to spend the afternoon together hanging out at a cabana club pool.
After the children gathered at the pool, the moms discussed meeting up with each other later. Before they convened, one mom needed to run errands, one mom needed to finish a project for work and the other mom had to wait for some workers to leave her house.
The women hoped to meet for the typical Pleasanton coffeehouse chat or return to the cabana club and chat poolside while their boys swam.
The first mom, intending to shop for the household’s weekly stock of food, never reached a store resembling a grocery. Instead, she found herself at Walgreens purchasing a $9.99 pair of movie-star style sunglasses for another Pleasanton friend who that day had been hit in the eye by the hatch of her SUV. Her friend was supposed to attend a family reunion the next day and needed a cover-up.
After dropping the glasses with her friend, causing quite a laugh, and enjoying an unplanned 60-minute visit over iced tea, the first mom sought out the other two moms.
“@ Eddie Papa’s 4 food - and maybe a beverage!” the second mom texted the first mom.
“Order me a surprise cocktail,” the first mom replied. “Be there in 5.”
The time was 4 p.m.
The mom arrived at Eddie Papa’s American Hangout on Hopyard just in time to greet her two friends and a freshly stirred cocktail called, appropriately, “Sinful Strawberry.”
Ninety minutes and many laughs later, the first mom received a call from one of her children, saying that the group was ready to come home and needed a ride.
“You’ll make it home faster if you walk,” she said in an unsuccessful attempt to extend her afternoon out with friends; by then, the impromptu gathering had become an evening out.
"I don’t have my shoes,” the child said.
“Well, I’m running errands and can’t get you for at least half an hour. Can you wait?”
The lies! Her friends grinned at her, sipped their cocktails, and began eating the food that had just been delivered by the waitress.
“Why isn’t this OK?” the second mom asked, after the first mom hung up.
“What do you mean?” asked the third mom.
“My mom would be appalled if she saw this!” the second mom said. “But isn’t it just fine that we’re doing this?”
“My mom would be right here with us!” the third mom said with a laugh.
“It’s like a dumbed-down version of The Real Housewives of Pleasanton,” said the first mom. “Some moms would be appalled!”
“Seriously,” said the second mom. “We shouldn’t have to lie about this.”
“In fact,” said the third mom, “we should do this more often!”
Staying long enough to enjoy some sweet potato fries, the first mom reluctantly left to retrieve the shoeless swimmers.
When she arrived back home with the pack of children, the rest of the family never inquired about the errands she’d been running for hours or the whereabouts of the groceries that usually appear on Friday evenings.
She'd evaded responsibility without interrogation. The disgrace!
Later, when one of the children inquired about dinner, she remembered her backup meals and said, “Either pasta or hot dogs and beans.”
“Let’s order pizza instead,” said an adult member of the family.
You could see the mom’s wheels spinning at the suggestion.
“If we order from , I can do the run and pick up the pizzas in 35 minutes,” the mom said. “It’s right next door.”
“Really? You do that?” asked the other adult family member, as if the mother had offered a favor. “Thanks!”
The family was blind to this woman’s manipulation.
Over the course of five hours, she’d offloaded her children at a pool and maintained the appearance of a frenzied, errand-running working mom. She never let on that the majority of her time was spent relaxing with (over iced tea and a “Sinful Strawberry”) good friends.
Like I said, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t received the information directly from the participants involved in this dastardly behavior.
