The Wheels on the Bus. . .

Today I had the rare privilege* of going on a field trip with hundreds of ninth graders.  It was about as fun as you would imagine a field trip with hundreds of ninth graders to be, especially since we were only going across town to the tech school, so there were no fun zoos or museums to speak of.  The only fun part was when, during the presentation on the early childhood development pathway, I tried to convince a couple of my girls that the robot babies were actually dead babies.  They didn't buy it.  They also didn't believe that the mannequin heads in the cosmetology room were severed heads of fugitives.**  Shoot.

One of the best (and by best I mean, of course, worst) parts of this trip was that I got to ride across town in a school bus. 

I hate riding school buses.

Hate hate hate hate hate.

And do you know why?  (I mean, other than the fact that they smell and don't have good climate control and they're uncomfortable and always chock full of screaming children?) 

I super hate school buses because, when I was in the tenth grade I had to ride the school bus to school.  And I hated it.  It took 45 minutes each way, and there were a bunch of trashy kids on my bus, and it was uncomfortable and loud and too bumpy for me to be able to get my homework done.  So I'd just sit there, bored and miserable.  If I was lucky, I might get to talk to some preppy girl about her newest pair of jeans from Abercrombie. 

Before too long, I realized that the only thing that would make the bus ride bearable would be sleep.  So I took to sleeping on the bus.  And then I took to lying on the seat and sleeping on the bus.  And then, on one fateful day, I took to sleeping a little too hard on the bus--so hard, in fact, that I didn't wake up for my stop.  And I didn't wake up for the next stop, or the next stop after that, either.

I didn't wake up until much later, when I popped my head up, only to realize that I was the only kid on the bus and that the bus was now on the highway.

Oops.

Both I and bus driver were pretty freaked out.  Fortunately--in a very embarrassing twist--the bus was headed to my brother's middle school.  I had to go to the office, call my parents, and get permission to, in my sixteenth year of life, ride the middle school bus home with my kid brother.

It was pretty humiliating. 

And that, my friends, is why I hate school buses.  But, really, doesn't everyone hate school buses?


*The universe hates me.

**This, coupled with the fact that they didn't believe that I was Jesus the other day, makes me think that I'm losing my touch when it comes to lying to children.