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2002-05-17 - 2:01 p.m.

And now, for the rest of the story.

I have enough things on a "Don't Do This" list to fill volumes. Much like a kid, I have a tendency to jump in and do things without first considering the consequences. That tendency has gotten me into some awkward predicaments.

Several years ago, after an unpleasant experience at the Cedar Rapids bus station, I learned it was bad form to lose my mother. My folks had planned a trip to visit, and Mom was coming a day or so earlier than Dad. Instead of driving two cars, she decided to take the Greyhound, and I would meet her at the station. Sounds simple, right? Well, as it turned out it was anything but simple.

I arrived at the bus station a few minutes in advance of the bus and parked where I thought I could see all departing passengers. And waited and waited and waited. No mother. And no buses arriving, either. I was beginning to panic, and after more than an hour I drove across the city and called Dad. Where in the hell was Mom, why hadn’t she taken the bus?

A pause. Then he tells me he did put her on the bus in Kirksville. Then where the hell is she? A question I think he was also beginning to ponder. He suggested I go back to the station and get my mother, so across the city I go. And I park and I wait. In the next hour a few buses enter the terminal, drop off passengers, board new passengers and leave. My mother is not in the group. So I go back across the city and again call Dad.

I’m scared my mother is lost somewhere in the Midwest, and he’s furious with me for losing her. He starts issuing orders: Go back to the station, this time go INTO the damned station, and the next time I call my mother had better be in my home with me.

I go back, this time going inside the station. My mother was sitting in the terminal. My mother had been sitting in the terminal through all of this, had placed calls to my home (I didn’t have an answering machine at the time), and was wondering where I was. Never having traveled by bus (I still haven’t), I didn’t realize buses sometimes arrive at their destinations much earlier than expected. On the ride across town, my mother pointed this fact out to me. She also pointed out she wasn’t the one lost.

I’ve also added don’t stand with your butt to a camel to my “Don’t Do This” list. Not long ago a couple of Brew Crew members--SueSue and Pat--and I spent our annual Fall Lady’s Weekend Away at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. It was a beautiful September day; we had gnawed on pork chops on sticks, danced a jig with the Merry Maidens and shopped the open-air market. And then SueSue and I spotted the camel ride!

Little, squirming people lined up for a ride on the beast; their parents stood outside the riding arena and photographed the Kodak Moment. SueSue and I readily agreed a camel ride seemed like another fine Festival adventure and we queued up. We were just two more kids, one nearly six foot tall, the other sporting an unruly mop of white hair. White hair, by the way, had made a stop or two at Ye Ole Tavern before discovering the camel.

As we topped the camel-mounting stand, Paul, being a very astute camel, could sense the weight of the world about to descend on his back. He turned his long snout in our direction, bared his teeth and yowled or howled or bawled or whatever the hell camels do. I mirrored his behavior, then turned my back on him to crawl aboard. When I bent over to wedge my foot into the stirrup, Paul had the last laugh, or, in this case, the last nip at my butt.

I know in an earlier Bad Hair Day story I vowed I’d never again color my hair. Well, truth is, I did open myself up to the remote possibility of yet another hair coloring. A possibility so remote I had forgotten about it. But Wednesday Andrew popped into my office and reminded me of my promise.

Andrew is a student in one of our alternative programs. He’s a sophomore who blew off most classes during freshman year and failed all seven first semester this year. Because of Andrew and hundreds more like him, I often feel I’m fighting a losing battle. In an attempt to at least win a small scrimmage, I was talking with Andrew one afternoon and asked what the hell it would take to get him to pass all classes this semester, thereby moving closer to high school completion.

He looked at me, then my white mop and announced: “Getting to dye your hair.”

Andrew, in addition to being a slave to the current butt-plunging dungarees and oversized t-shirts, likes to change his hair color. Daily!

“And which of your colors, Andrew?”

A mischievous grin. “Voodoo Blue.”

I almost muttered Oh shit , but I pride myself in trying to keep one step ahead of these kids, or at least pulling their bluff, so I stepped right into it. “You got it, Andrew. You pass all seven, my hair is yours.”

At quarter end in March I checked with Andrew, and he was failing four of seven. At that time I reminded him of his wager and felt confident I would remain in possession of my white locks. The other day he boogied into my office and slapped down a grade report. I tried to hide my sense of dread. I was looking at passing grades in all areas. Swallowing my fear, and mentally counting the days left in this year (11 for Andrew), I smiled at Andrew and mumbled: “This is great.”

He gave me the thumb and index finger gun signal: “Your hair is mine, Sherer.”

Ohmigod! Not only am I going to be trying to cover another spiked summer hair do (I’ll have to have as much of the color cut out as possible) with ball caps, this summer’s spike is going to be Voodoo Blue!

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