MARK MY WORD: HI HO, HI HO, IT'S SPEEDING WE WILL GO

You see them every day, speeding along, hurrying to get somewhere they should have been 10 minutes ago.

They are parents, and they're late ... late ... late for an important date, like work.

As a parent, I know all about speeding. It's not that we don't want to have a leisurely drive to work, day care, children's dance, piano or gymnastics classes, or a ton of other destinations. It's just that we can't stay on schedule because our children don't do so.

We try to keep our families on schedule, but ultimately we fall behind. Joni and I find it hard to get our two daughters dressed and transported across town -- our 4-year-old to day care and our 6-month-old to a baby sitter -- and get to work in time for a morning staff meeting.

It's not like we overslept. We get up early enough, as does our baby. But our oldest girl, Becca, is a sound sleeper. By the time we rouse her from her usual comatose state, it's all we can do to get her a Pop-Tart, a glass of chocolate milk and find her shoes as we load everyone into the car.

Parents have to speed. If we didn't, we wouldn't get to work until noon, much less get our children to some after-school dance class or soccer practice.

Personally, I believe we need two speed limits in this country. One for non-parents and a faster speed limit for parents.

Lately, some citizens have complained about motorists speeding on Lexington. The police have talked of stepping up enforcement in this residential neighborhood.

I happen to live in this area. If the police run radar, I'll be running later and so will a whole lot of other parents.

However, even speed bumps and police snipers won't stop speeding parents as they taxi their children on their appointed rounds.

Now, I know what some of you are thinking. Why don't parents just get their children up earlier? Because no matter how early you get them up, you still won't be ready to leave the house on time. Something always comes up at the last minute, like looking for those car keys that you can't find because your children were playing with them last night.

"Where did you put your head?" you ask. "I don't know," replies your child, who could find a piece of candy in a crowded cupboard, but nothing starring him or her in the face in the bathroom mirror.

Perhaps the solution to all this running around is just to change time itself.

The World Decimal Time Society, based in Britain, wants to get rid of hours and minutes and replace them with a decimal system that would subdivide time the way the metric system divides space.

A year would consist of 36, 10-day weeks. Their day would be divided into 1 million units, called millitims.

If this means longer weekends, most parents would oppose it. It's tough enough managing your children on a regular weekend. By Monday, you're all out of clean clothes and construction paper.

Besides, a millitim is shorter than a second. Instead of being late, we'd be later.

The only time change I'd like is one that would allow time to stand still, at least until we get the children to school.

It's either that or we have to speed a little to catch up.

~Mark Bliss is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.