Finally, door number three is revealed

Between being sick, packing, moving, unpacking and organizing, I forgot to take my name out of the Urban Discovery Academy lottery.

And because I saw that the names were being picked today, and because I have Mondays off, I decided to go to the lottery and not only see how I fared, but how several of my friends did as well.

There were about eight of us in the school's main meeting room sitting on folding chairs. We were all there for kindergarten. So of course, they began with the highest grade (7th) and worked down to K. There were only about one or two spots for fifth, sixth and seventh, and no spots for fourth, third, second or first. The names they called were for waiting list only.

Finally it was our turn.

The way it worked was two parent volunteers put the applications in one of those giant, white mail holders and then pulled them out one by one. The principal was at the table with her hot pink laptop and she entered the names as they were called out.

There were 24 spots open and I'd say about less than 100 applications, which is actually pretty good. What made it awkward, however, was that because they knew we were all there for kindergarten, the volunteers would read the names and then look out at us for a reaction.

And, unlike the Museum School lottery, no one was being called. Not for a long time. Only one out of the eight of us actually got in the school. But they kept picking names for the waiting list and every time - every time! - they looked at us with a sad sort of face.

I got called #49. Others in the room where in the 50s. And many moms were pretty devastated, which would have been me just a few weeks ago.