No School Bus for Me

The first year and a half of my schooling was traumatic... for everybody.  Initially, in Kindergarten, it was separation anxiety.  But by 1st grade, I was resigned to my fate and good ol' active imagination anxiety set in.

I refused to ride the bus.  First of all, I had to ride a different bus than my older siblings and who's to say that bus driver would really just take me to school?  He could be a member of that Patty Hearst cult for all we knew.  And the return trip?  "It's easy, sweetie.  Just get in line and your teacher will make sure no one abducts you and you get on the bus."
"Which bus?  They all look the same."
"The number 5 bus."
"I don't know my numbers yet."  That was a lie and we both knew it, but I won out, and Mom taxied me to & from school.

However, there were other perils to consider.  You see, I knew my Mother.  I was her constant shadow for five years.  I can not tell you how many times we'd go out to run errands and have to back track to get her checkbook.  If she couldn't be counted on to remember the very source of our sustenance--well, sooner or later, she was bound to forget me.

She would forget me and I would have to spend the night in that big building, as long as a football field, way out in the sticks, in the pitch black, all by myself.  Unless, of course, the Manson Family happened to stop by.

I was a nervous wreck.  I started chewing on my hair; my mother cut it so that it would no longer reach my mouth.  (In hindsight, my family isn't big on addressing the root of a problem...)  Without that crutch, I began to cry.  Every day after lunch, we'd be walking back to class and about the time we'd pass the bathroom, an image of Alice Cooper and all his Billion Dollar Babies would pop into my head and I would start sobbing.

Poor Miss Hipshire, my 1st grade teacher.  Young, fresh out of college, dealing with this tangled mess while trying to make sure everybody else knew their alphabet.  I liked Mrs. Hipshire and by the middle of the year, I could tell my daily hysteria was wearing her thin.  So I decided to stop.

It was a conscious decision.  All day long, while everybody else was figuring out 2 + 2 or Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, I was doing an inner zen yoga chant of "I will not cry.  She will not forget me.  I will not cry.  She will not forget me."  And somehow, miraculously, I made it through the day.  It appeared to be a high point in Mrs Hipshire's career when the final bell rang that afternoon.

And on that beautiful day, that perfect day in which I conquered my fear, my Mother forgot me.

You know what they do when your Mother forgets to pick you up?
They call her.

I was standing outside with Mrs. Hipshire when the Big Green Chrysler Bomb pulled up.  I wriggled into the passenger seat.
"You forgot me."
"I was sewing curtains and lost track of time."
"Oh."
And like so many things in our family, it was never to be spoken of again.  I never worried one more minute about it and it never happened again, because after that, I started riding the bus.