Oh, to be a teenager again….not

This morning Nicole’s bus was running really late and to keep her and the other two kids who wait at her stop from being late for school, I offered to drive them. It was really cold out there or I don’t think the kids would have agreed. There was Nicole, her friend, Dianna, and the neighbor boy Emilio. (Please forgive me if I massacred the spelling of his name) At first he wasn’t going to accept, but when even the grade school bus had come and gone, he decided I was the lesser of two evils. He’s not fat, but he’s a big boy and I was telling Nicole to let him have the front seat, and she’s laughing because he’s violently shaking his head “no” until I turn around and look at him. I’m okay with that…he doesn’t know me. So he and Dianna pile in the back seat and Nicole is up front with me.

We head out to school and they start going on about their bus driver and how much they hate her.  She’s even driven by Nicole and Dianna before  and said they weren’t out there!! She told them she can’t change the radio station because she’s too short and can’t reach the button. She’s always threatening to write one or the other of them up. I told Emilio he better watch out or  he’s going to be persecuted by association. “Huh?” they say. Then since this is Dianna’s last day, she has plans to tell the bus driver off on the way home. (Nicole won’t be on the bus, so she’s already enlisted the aid of a friend to video it on her cell phone so she  can watch.) I warned Dianna to be careful and not threaten anyone.

She has it all planned out. “I’m gonna ask the bus driver what her name is and she’s gonna say blah blah and I’m gonna say  Ms. Blah Blah you need to find another job because you shouldn’t be around kids.”

I tell her she’s a real diplomat.

She says, “I don’t know what that means.”

Emilio says, “Me either…I don’t like big words.” 

Nicole says. “I feel so smart.” 

Dianna says one of her friends called her a tard. She said, “I don’t know what that means.”

The friend says, “Put re in front of it.”

Dianna says, “Retard…I don’t know what that means…hey wait a minute.”

I hope they’re just pulling an old lady’s leg.