Friday Afternoons

I’m sitting in a warm, quiet bus, in a long line of school buses like a yellow ribbon strung in an arc in front of this grade 2-4 school, waiting. Momentarily the doors will open and they will emerge, walking as fast as possible without breaking into a run (running ist Verboten!), happy, their eyes scanning for their bus number or the familiar faces of their drivers. They jostle to be first on the bus, a badge of honor which goes to little Dominic most of the time. He is by far the shortest of this group, but you should see how fast his little legs can walk.

The cold January air and the increasing loudness have replaced the quiet and the warmth. Time to get to work!

It is Friday. They are so loud and restless on Fridays that I believe, at times, my pulse quickens.

Volume Control UP
Friday afternoon is the most dramatic and most active ride of the week. Someone calls someone stupid. That’s all it takes and now, the receiver of stupid believes that I must, that I want, to know about it. How do they tell me from seat 15? They yell. I can’t hear them, so they simply yell louder, their insulted eyes on me. I still can’t hear them because one yeller turns up the volume enough to require another child to yell to his friends, like a line of dominos standing on end, the first yell is the touch that starts the action.

The Driver Reacts
Twice I have pulled over, turned off the engine and become the Wicked Witch of the West on a Friday afternoon. Occassionally I’ve attempted other methods to quell the mounting Friday afternoon chaos. One time I grabbed my microphone, turned the volume to high and sang: “Whooooooooooooooooo lives in a pineapple under the sea!”. Shocked into silence, they gazed at one another, mouths open in surprise but quickly recovered and boomed, “Sponge Bob Square Pants!!”. That was fun and it worked. They sang that annoying little ditty for days.

You know, the way this story is told, you might be surprised that it is only a 3-mile trip. My motto has been, “I can take anything for three miles”. However, there are ten stop signs, one traffic light, and a lot of turns. I count them on Fridays.