Sixth Grade Field Trip

Otherwise known as "Please Kill Me Now."

Tomorrow is the 6th grade field trip to the Museum of Science. On a bus. For an hour and a half each way. With 6th graders. They are twelve, in case you've forgotten. Want to spend a 3-hour round-trip bus ride with 48 twelve year olds and 17 adult chaperones? I didn't think so.

Now, this has been done before more-or-less pleasantly, the time Andrea and I wore matching cherry flip-flops and, in the interest of full disclosure, were just a leeetle bit hung over from drinking Trailer Park Punch the night before, so things were just a little funnier than they might have otherwise been. Plus, I had a really great class that year, and one really Hot Dad as a chaperone.

This year...well, my class is...yeah. I don't know. I have two that I'm afraid will literally hurl themselves out the bus window just to get their peers' attention. I mean, I am SERIOUSLY afraid of that happening. I have another one who persists on wearing a sweatshirt that smells like cat pee despite my saying, "Hey, your sweatshirt smells like cat pee. Please wash it." He hasn't. I have another student who thinks it's really funny to bark and say "Shhhhh!!!!" REALLY loudly as often as possible. Not Tourette's or anything...just for fun. I have one with Autism who already doesn't like loud noises...so the bus ride should be FUN for him, obviously, plus two "advanced" kids (read: closer to 13) that I already have to tell every day NOT to do that one-armed middle school hug thing during locker time.

I AM NOT EXCITED ABOUT THIS FIELD TRIP. At least I don't have a group assigned to me, so I will try to spend the museum time just floating around, trying to sneak up on kids and watch them from afar, being available in case one of them loses it and needs to be taken out.

Ah...who am I kidding? In a perfect world, I will hide in that little room where the tiny-faced monkeys play, or in the corner of the cafeteria looking out on the Charles River, sparkling in the sunlight, and eating the gummy bears and Swedish fish I will have hidden in my pockets. For fortification.

Wish me luck.