Yesterday afternoon I had the dubious pleasure of returning home by bus at about the time local schools send their pupils home. In the absence of organised transportation for schoolkids in England, at about 4pm every day the local bus effectively turns into a school bus.
I can’t fault the kids’ behaviour, really: they were on the whole a pleasant bunch, it’s just there were so many of them, in their variously coloured school ties, with huge folders pressed to their chests, chatting over the heads of other bus passengers. It was a little cramped.
To distract myself, I imagined I was on a different school bus entirely: as a middle-school girl on an organised field trip to a museum, for example. My best friend had a cold and was forced to stay behind, and nobody wants to sit with me or talk with me, and all the snooty six-formers are behaving as though the whole thing is beneath them… I just know that in a few minutes this cauldron will boil over, at which point the supervising prefect will snap: “That’s it! I’m reporting the lot of you to Dr. Jenkins the moment we’re back!” And we will all get caned – even though I’m doing nothing wrong, I’m telling you, nothing!..
Lost as I was in this fantasy, I didn’t fail to notice one of the girls take her tie off her neck and wrap it around her forehead instead, hippy headband-style. In my school, on my bus, one of my fantasy schoolgirls would know better.
Dear Haron, I can’t think of a single interesting misbehaving bus story this morning, but would a misbehaving schoolgirls overseas trip story do? There was a school trip to South East Asia when I was in Year 12 and there happened to be a free afternoon. We noticed some local guys in the building opposite our hotel room, and the other girls (certainly not me!) went onto the balcony and began waving their bras in a sort of ‘come and get me’ way. A few minutes later there was a knock at the door, and there were the boys. With much hilarity, we all worked on shoving them out the door and slamming it in their faces. We never got caught, but just imagine our fates if we had!!
Lost as I was in this fantasy, I didn’t fail to notice one of the girls take her tie off her neck and wrap it around her forehead instead, hippy headband-style. In my school, on my bus, one of my fantasy schoolgirls would know better.
That brought back memories… my friends and I did the same thing all the time, and then played air guitar like demented rockers. Sadly though there’s no happy ending – we never got caught and punished for it! 😉
Rob – that sounds exactly like what some of my friends and I did, only we were not in a hotel, but in one of the girls’ house. :-O (And we weren’t waving bras, but putting on gas masks and waving to the passers-by, but it was about as smart as the bra-waving.) The girl whose house it was still bear a little grudge LOL
Sarah – I’m sure if you give your guy a hint, he’ll help you clear your conscience on the issue of defacing your uniform 😉
Haron: I’m shccked, completely horrified! Do you think they will still allow you to practice law???? I’m not sure who gets the prize for being the most patheticly good ‘good girl’ – you or me.
Haron – My conscience on the matter has spent the last 20 odd years feeling clear until you said that, how strange that I now feel the need to confess all and accept the consequences! 😉
Haron/Sarah: You are both lucky lucky lucky to be long standing friends who can share your…er..interests. I have been such a scaredy cat that the only person to know my…er…interersts is my husband, and I wasn’t too fast about sharing even with him.
Haron/Sarah: Whoops! I think I got the gas mask wearing and the dafaming the school uniform incidents confused. THe timing/ages don’t match up. Perhaps I’m not such a stand out scaredy cat after all???
Lol! Rob, I’d say telling your husband is a long long way from being a scaredy cat! Haron and I only know each other through this blog – so far! Can’t say lots of people know my…er… interests (as you so sweetly put it
)but as I get older I must admit I’m getting less and less bothered about people knowing, after all, I’m happy with it and if they’re not..well it’s their problem isn’t it? Not mine!
Dear Sarah: Thank you for your supportive comments. I really appreciate that. And – I tend to agree – but I have to keep reminding myself that I do live in a vanilla world, and would shock the pants off people who (think) they know me well, including friends who I have known since we started school together in kindergarten.