Oh...tis the bus. How do you describe it? Blast-from-the-past bus drivers? Freakish kids playing their DS's? The ones that burst your eardrums with their loud screams about nothing important? That's just the beginning.

There's the smart alecy ones that spit when they talk. Honestly, you're not a gieser. They set up the sound systems in their house and are so smart it's annoying. They talk so loud that you find yourself instinctively reaching up to cover your ears. You debate on who's more annoying- the gieser child or the screaming 8th grader who froze at age 2 and STILL has a crush on you...

Ahhh...the screaming eighth grader. Possibly the most annoying person you've EVER laid eyes on. I believe there's two or three of them on EVERY bus...(you know who you are.) There's the ones who dedicate their life to making you go deaf (maybe THAT'S why I didn't pass the hearing screening!) "MORGAN, MORGAN, MORGAN, morgan, MORGAN, morgan, morgan MORGAANNNN! WHATCHA READING? WHATCHA READING? WHY AREN'T YOU ANSWERING MY QUESTION!!!?! WHATCHA READING! morgan!!!! Answer me! WHATTTCHAAA READINGGGG?!?!?!?!?!?" Any afternoon that this occurs, I always vacate the bus with clenched teath when my stop finally arrives. And we can't forget about the frozen-at-age-2 children that are just plain...strange! They eat their scabs, memorize jokebooks, and buy laser pointers that shock people just for the fun of it! "Hey Morgan, how would you like getting Jacob back for all the things he's done to you?" William tempts me, holding out a laser pointer. "Give it to me," I respond, eyeing the demon child who so frequently interrupts my reading time. All of a sudden, William's sweet, innocent little sister yells, "DON'T DO IT MORGAN! IT...SHOCKS YOU!" My eyes turn to slits as I return the laser pointer to William and stare him down. How DARE he!!! Does he think he's better than me because he wears a shark tooth necklace, his trademark black underarmor, jeans, and Green Pumas?

Then there's the ones that go on and on about nothing you care about. "What did one dead guy say to the other dead guy? My friend Matt told me this joke at karate yesterday," he says to no one in particular. "Matt's brother is in the airforce. Matt and him are like twins, it's amazing....they look exactly alike! His favorite food is Cheetos...just like mine! Anyway..." You can't help but laugh dryly when you look up and everyone is occupied doing anything but listening to this joke that I guess was meant to have you rolling up and down the aisles laughing until you have stomach cramps.

And of course, there's the courageous 6th graders. I always seem to miss the memo for the 'assigning seats' party on the morning of the first day of school, but for some reason that escapes me, everyone has 'their seats' picked out by that afternoon. You just finish loading 10 pounds worth of books into a random seat and sit down with a sigh, ready to relax, or as much as you can with the gieser beside you and a first grader's new laser pointer shining in your eye. Annoying sixth grader comes up and informs you that this is Logan's seat. Why do you care? It's Logan's...not yours? My response is always an, "I don't care. Logan can sit somewhere else." Annoying sixth grader smirks and moves into the seat behind me. Wonderful.

And don't forget about the identical twins with the high, squeaky voices! Annoying to the point of driving me to a mental institution, Bob and Fred...or Fred and Bob...never really say anything of the essence. It's always the most random, uncared about snidbits of info in the world. I guess it doesn't really matter if I get mad at them and hold a grudge...the next day I won't even be able to tell which one I came this close to smacking!

I don't know about your bus, but here's what occupies the riders on mine:

1) the most common of bus hobbies would be the DS. This is for when your annoyed with the person next to you and are pretending your actually enjoying your game of Mario.
2) Texting. You pretend to be engrossed in an important text-to-text convo so the 3rd grader next to you won't ask to see your phone.
3) Pretending your a dragon. Or even better...Bakugan. The famous cartoon network show that no one except faithful, dragon loving second graders really cares about. Don't get me wrong...these kids really are quite sweet, but you can't help but roll your eyes when they yell out, "ABILITY ACTIVATED! HI-YA!"
4) Playing with useless school crafts. Gumball towers, gigantic construction paper books filled with scribbles, huge paper airplanes, I've seen it all. Then of course they have to pretend they live in the gumball house and drive the airplane. Great. And they want you to be their neighbor. Nice.

Thus, my life on the Big Yellow. It will be truly horrible when I get a car and can drive myself to school.