The following is a true story, and, despite the horrible
embarrassment of it all, I have decided to recount it here for your
entertainment. Now that I am 11 years away from the event, I also find it
pretty hilarious, though I do have to wonder what I was thinking! The story
begins like this…
 |
| Watch out! Dumbass on board! |
In 2002, I began my first year as an elementary school
teacher. I was fresh out of college and overeager, as all first-year teachers
seem to be. I had gotten a job at a school in DeKalb County in Atlanta, and
DeKalb County had just gotten a new school superintendent. I guess the school superintendent was
overeager too, because he decided that it would be a great idea, and a great
way to spend taxpayer dollars, if he required every employee of the DeKalb
County School System to be bussed to a stadium in the central part of the county
for a big inspirational pow-wow. Rumor has it that he had initially planned to
parachute into the stadium out of an airplane, in the interest of making a
grand entrance, but thought better of it, because maybe that was somewhat of a
waste of funds. (I swear, I am not making this up!) So, on my second day of
employment, all of the teachers were required to be at the school at 6:30 AM to
get on the bus to ride together to the stadium for the big shindig. This was
murderously difficult, because I had to get up earlier than usual, and I did
not have the Wake N Shake Alarm Clock app to help me.
Now, I don’t know how many teachers you know, but I will
tell you one thing I have noticed about most teachers, and that is that we
don’t like to have to do things that we feel are a waste of time. I know most
people are like that, but at the beginning of the school year, when teachers
have limited time to prepare their classrooms for students, you better have a
really good reason for taking us away from our preparations. Like, we need to
donate blood to help save the President’s life because we are the only one in the entire country who is a
match for his blood type, or that George Clooney is coming to visit, or
something like that. Needless to say, for most of us, riding down to a stadium
on the big cheese to engage in motivational activities during August, when it
was 90-plus degrees outside, did not fit the bill as a necessary activity.
Once we got to the stadium it actually seemed like we were
there to watch an Olympic event, it was so crowded. I tried to stay with the
few people on staff who I knew, the main one being my friend, Kylene, with whom
I had done my student teaching. I was very happy that Kylene is pretty tall,
because then it would be harder to lose her in the crowd. With it being only my
second day of employment and all, I didn’t know that many other people, so I just
stuck to Kylene like glue, until I developed a fierce need for independence,
which we will get to in a minute. We got to our seats, and the rousing inspirational jamboree began. I know the
superintendent gave a speech about the upcoming school year, but my clearest
memory is that he, for some reason, then led the entire stadium full of already
disgruntled teachers in a rendition of “If You’re Happy and You Know It (Clap
Your Hands). I am pretty sure we were all just looking at each other like, “Who
let the crazy man out of the asylum?” but we somehow made it through and the
events finally ended close to noon.
Now, before I go further, I must tell you two very important
facts about myself. First, I am always interested in efficiency. I am always
looking for the fastest, most direct and effective way to do something, and
sometimes in that quest I overlook important facts, such as why a longer route
to the same solution might be more advantageous than the more direct route.
Second, I have the most godforsaken, abysmal sense of direction of anyone that was ever born on this earth. I
literally could not find my way out of a box, even if you gave me a GPS to help
me. I have lived in Atlanta for 35 years, and I went to college downtown, yet I
still require step-by-step prodding from Google Maps to get anywhere in the
city. Basically, don’t ever ask me how to get anywhere, because you will end up
in the wrong place. Now that you understand these two important facts about me,
I can explain how events unfolded.
When the gathering ended, everyone was in a rush to get out
of that stadium. It was like we had all been incarcerated for 87 years and
someone had just told us we were finally being released. Plus, the chaos was
not organized. There was no real way to make sure you stayed with your school,
except to basically hold hands with the people you knew and forge ahead through
the crowd. I was with Kylene and a couple of other teachers from my school, and
we were in the stands, right in front of the wall that led to the field. We
were going to have to walk all the way through the stands and out the other
side to get back to our bus in one of the two stadium parking lots. (Buses had
parked on both sides of the stadium.) I saw some brave souls who had decided to
climb over the tall concrete wall and walk onto the field to get to the parking
lots faster because then they would not have to battle the crowd. I decided
this was a fantastic idea, but none of my co-workers agreed. They said we
should just stay in the stands and walk to the bus that way, because that was
the way we had come in, and then we would be sure to find our way back to the
correct bus.
I, however, was not to be reasoned with. Because I am clearly
a lunatic, I decided it was a great decision to climb over that wall and make
my way back to the bus by myself.
All I can say in my defense is that I was young and dumb, and obviously didn’t
have a good sense of my own limitations. Well, I finally got to the parking lot
where all of the buses were located, and I started walking down the rows of
buses trying to find the one with the name of my school displayed in the
window. I walked and walked, but could not find the correct bus. I started to
feel worried, because buses were pulling out of the parking lot and the lot was
emptying out pretty fast. The only bright spot was that, as I walked by one of
the buses, I saw the face of an ex-boyfriend in one of the windows. I knew he
also worked in DeKalb County, and when I had dated him I had been quite a bit
heavier than I was at that time. I was then thin and looked great, so I enjoyed
my moment, and attempted to nonchalantly do my supermodel pose, but I am pretty
sure I just had that “Blue Steel” look on my face. As his bus pulled away, the
momentary euphoria wore off, and I realized that there were only two buses left
in the lot, and that none of them contained my co-workers.
Panicking, I went onto one of the buses and told the driver
that I could not find my bus. I asked her to help me. “Honey,” she said, “These
two buses are the only ones left. Everyone else is gone. Maybe your bus was in
the other lot.” I had kind of forgotten that there was another lot, but at that
moment I felt like the big dumbass that it turns out, I actually was. “What
should I do?” I asked, mortified. The driver informed me that the two remaining
buses would carry all of the people that got left by their buses back to the
schools. Now, surprisingly, there were about 15 other people spread out between
the two buses. All of them were obviously, like me, huge dumbasses, so at least
I was in good company. We all sat, spread out on the bus, trying to look
smarter than we felt. On the ride back we dropped several other stragglers off
at their schools, and all the while the bus driver was communicating over the
very public radio system each time she let off one of “the stragglers.”
By the time I arrived back at my school it was an hour and a
half later, and I had missed most of an important meeting. On my second day of work. At my new job. Needless to say, walking
in during the middle of that meeting to a cafeteria full of my puzzled
co-workers was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life. I later
explained to my principal what had happened, and she was very nice, only I bet
she later went home and told her family about that idiot teacher who missed the
bus like a kindergartener on her first day of school, and they all had a good
laugh. I know I would have! I told Kylene about the debacle, and word ended up
getting around to my co-workers, and everyone had a good chuckle. Now this
story is legendary in the annals of teaching history. Plus, I learned my lesson
about straying from the group and trying to find my way somewhere without help.
My hope for you is that, first, you never have to go to a
stadium in August and hear the school superintendent sing “If You’re Happy and
You Know It (Clap Your Hands)” when the stadium seats are so hot in the 90,000
degree heat that your butt gets third degree burns sitting on them, even
through your pants. My second hope is that, if you do end up somewhere in a
huge crowd like that, and you need to find your way back home, that you stay
with the crowd and leave carving your own path for your future career
achievements!
School bus image courtesy of http://cityofwatsonville.org/public-works-utilities/conservation_outreach_and_education_program/environmental-school-program/attachment/school-bus
Zoolander image courtesy of http://archive.foolz.us/tg/thread/24635859/
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