End of day 2

Because I’d been smelling the food sitting in our refrigerator for the past day and a half, there was no way that I was eating it, so I was glad when one of the other chaperons wanted to walk to a nearby restaurant for lunch. We set out and were keeping up a nice pace, and after we’d been walking for 10 minutes or so, it started to sprinkle, then drizzle, then rain, then downpour.  There was no point in turning back because by the time it was raining hard it was probably 15 minutes back to the hotel.

So on we went. I had a raincoat, which was the very last thing I’d thrown in my bag. What I’d neglected to bring were my rain booties, primarily because I don’t own any. I have a pair of waterproof hiking shoes, but not with me, so my feet got very squishy. Finally the rain began to let up and of course, we immediately arrived at the restaurant and by the time we were seated the sun was shining.

Lunch was pleasant, but took a long time to arrive. And by the time we were done the sky was dark again and yes, the same routine was repeated on the way home. But we made it, squishy feet and all.

The rest of the afternoon seems kind of hazy to me. I think I took a nap, so maybe that’s why. Coming downstairs there were people in the elevator talking about the movie playing at the theater. “It’s called Moonstruck, with Cher or something. I thought Moonstruck was James Bond.” I wanted no part of dinner either, so I hung out for a bit and then did faculty bowling.

There’s a bit by the late comic Mitch Hedberg, differentiating between something that was genuinely exciting and something that’s pancakes exciting. Pancakes exciting is your pancakes arrive and you’re feeling like “Ooh! Pancakes!” and then by the time you’re about halfway through, it’s more like “Er, pancakes.” Faculty bowling was kind of like that. For the first game, everyone was cheering the others and celebrating successes and failures alike.  But by the middle of the second game we were just walking up and rolling the ball and then sitting down. One guy walked off, another person rushed off after each frame and played an arcade game until it was her turn again. All in all it was fun though.

Then we sat around and watched some basketball on TV, while the kids trailed back from the arcade, brandishing the booty they’d won. There were inflatable crayons and brightly colored bouncy balls and, well, that was about it, really, but some of them were really attached to them.

Most of the kids eventually filtered upstairs, until I was downstairs chaperoning 2 kids sitting and talking on a couch. On one level this was not the most challenging assignment I could have taken on, but really it was a microcosm of why senior trips are so great. How often during the school year would those two kids have had the chance to talk quietly for 2 hours straight? Never, and it was really sweet.