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Health & Fitness

You're Either On The Bus Or Waiting Behind It

Where I learn to never be on the road at 7:30 in the morning or at 2:30 in the afternoon.

I was out earlier than normal this morning and ended up behind a school bus. Now, in the old days, this was a minor annoyance. You remember, you'd have to wait every time they'd stop every four or five blocks to pick up kids at the bus stop.

Remember "school bus stops?" Apparently, they disappeared around the same time vinyl albums did. Now every time I see those red lights on a bus' rear start blinking, I tense up knowing that I will now be part of the morning school bus conga line of frustration.

So, now we get to sit in a line behind the school bus as it stops to pick up each kid at his house. Every single kid. At his house.

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Now, it would be one thing if children waited  outside at the curb next to the mixed recyclables but, of course, they don't. Nope. They sit in front of the TV watching "Spongebob Squarepants" while eating cereal, killing time until they hear the bus outside. Which is when they begin to get ready.

So, we wait.

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Then comes the kid's walk from the front door to the bus. I saw prisoners walk to the electric chair in "The Green Mile" more quickly than these kids.

Meanwhile, we continue to sit. And wait. I check my rear view mirror to see a good 12 cars behind me. Oh, good. Mom has to tell them goodbye.

"Hey! He's going to the elementary school four blocks away, not to Afghanistan!"

The school bus stop was a rite of passage for a kid growing up years ago. That first day of walking out of the house all by yourself and heading out into the cold, dark morning to stand on a corner with a bunch of other shivering kids. Staring in wonder at the older ones over on the side talking about whatever older kids talked about. I can still remember the first time I smelled something strange being smoked by high school guys wearing damp military jackets that reeked of sweat and sexual frustration.

Now, in defense of the children, I will say it must be difficult being 10 years old and lugging a backpack loaded with your textbooks back and forth five days a week. Picked up a kid's backpack lately? I carried hods of brick while working construction in college, and they didn't weigh as much as those things do.

Simple mathematics: A 40-pound kid should not be carrying around a book bag that weighs more than he or she does.

Know what really disturbs me? Those little plastic wheels some of these knapsacks come with that allow the kid to pull rather than carry them. I was in the school a few weeks ago, and all you could hear were hundreds of these little plastic wheels click-clacking down the hallway. Very disturbing.

The heavy bags are crucial because kids don't get desks in homerooms anymore. That's too bad. Your very own school desk is your first exposure to your very own personal space outside your parents' house. (Little did we realize that they were simply indoctrinating us to adulthood and to lives sitting in four-by-four cubicles for 40 hours a week.)

Ah, elemenatry school desks. Mysterious treasure chests of wonder and weirdness. School desks always had this smell when you opened them that was a combination of rubber erasers, gym socks, Fritos and old bananas. I can still remember that heady perfume just thinking about it.

Anyway, my 10-year-old just stumbled in like a porter on safari in Africa. Even after dropping her cement bag of a backpack on the floor, she still stands there like a 90-year-old Florida retiree in need of more calcium. So, I'll go grab her a juice box and some Icee Hot and rub her sore back while she watches "iCarly." But there is no way I am lugging that bag upstairs.

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