This past weekend I somehow got dragged into chaperoning a school band competition, which involved a long school bus ride each way. The heavy snow didn't help, slowing the drive down to about twice what was expected.
I kept asking the band director if we could give up and go back, but she just laughed and said "the show must go on." As I stared at passing snow drifts out the window I wanted to throw her in them and let her walk.
Anyway, due to the unusually long drive we made an unplanned stop on the way home so everyone could use a restroom and get something to eat. Fortunately, America is full of generic shopping malls with a wide variety of stores and fast food places. So all of you disappeared for 20 minutes, which was fine with me, as I got some peace and quiet until you returned for the last 2-3 hours of the drive.
You guys were pretty quiet for the last leg, no doubt because of the effects of cheeseburgers and fries hurriedly crammed down at McWhatever's. Because of the silence I began to doze off myself. The band director, wired on her 28th cup of coffee of the day, was on her iPad maniacally working on next weekend's competition.
It was actually pretty relaxing until the screaming began in the back of the bus, and rapidly spread. I thought perhaps Freddy Krueger had climbed in through a window and was attacking the clarinet section. The bus driver almost crashed as he hurriedly pulled off the road and we all frantically piled out into the snow, terrified of, well, whatever had happened to set you all shrieking hysterically.
After the bus had been abandoned we got a clearer idea of the emergency.
Apparently a few creative souls, whose names we don't know at this time, had wandered over to House O' Reptiles and bought a paper bag FULL of crickets meant to be used for feeding lizards, and released them in the back of the school bus. This resulted in the mass panic.
A kindly police officer pulled over to see what the problem was. When told he climbed on the bus himself to see, and then began laughing hysterically. Our driver channeled his best Samuel L. Jackson and yelled "I've had it with all these.... crickets on this... bus!" (not quite in Mr. Jackson's original creative words).
With the snow coming down, and temperatures below freezing, and being 2 hours from home... we didn't have many choices. We all got back on the bus.
Usually there are a few couples in the back of the bus trying to make out, and I'm supposed to keep an eye on you. I must say, having a large numbers of arthropods crawling all over certainly put the kibosh on your hormones during the ride back.
Fortunately, that was my last chaperone job of the year.
Craig and Marie have asked me to buy them each a can of Raid to take on the next road trip.
The district has charged the band boosters an extra $75 for fumigation services.
20 comments:
Jolly jape!
This MADE my Monday morning bearable!
ROTFLMAO!
This made my day!!!
Very creative of the little...urchins.
$75 sounds like cheap birth control for that many raging hormones. We know it was you Mrs. Grumpy....
In commemoration of the event, will the band learn to play "When You Wish Upon A Star (Jiminy Cricket's song.)
We did something well exactly like this for a pledge prank in 2003. 20k feeder crickets.
Um, when I chaperoned whippersnappers (this was the Dark Ages) they stayed in a group under chaperones' gimlet eyes. No excursions to pet stores.
But crickets ARE cheap birth control.
Awww.. poor crickets!! on the other hand, there's nothing more annoying than a difficult-to-locate chirping cricket keeping you up at night ... been there done that ...
Be glad they were only crickets. They COULD have purchased a bag of...other critters.
This story really bugs me.
The sound of crickets chirping
The brass of the brass section pushing every one off into the woods into the wind only to drum up amusement , I think they were stringing every one along. I hope no one catches the flute from being in the cold. Ok so this post is going down the tuba.
They are not crickets they are cock roaches.
Oh, thank you. I can see and hear it all. LOL
And while Craig and Marie might really want the Raid, be careful. Some crabby no-sense-of-humor school official will classify the cans as "weapons." Funny how that works. A can of bug killer is illegal and an AR-15 isn't.
The band members I knew in high school almost 50 years ago made it pretty clear that making out in the back of the bus was their main reason for being in the band. I think the crickets were a brilliant idea. Fleas would have been even better, except that I don't think pet stores sell those.
These youngsters today are so creative. The favorite band prank in my day was slinging spit rockets from your trombone by swinging the instrument in an arc and opening the spit valve at the apex of the arc. An experienced slinger with just the right viscosity of spit could hit almost 10 yards.
Oh my God as a bus driver I find this hysterical!
It was only crickets on a bus. How about a mouse running loose on a city train. Now that was real hysteria.
Bwaa-ha-ha. But I'd be glad when the experience was over too.
Post a Comment