This was being a chaperone in the year 2009? Guess I forgot to read volunteer waiver’s fine print.

This was being a chaperone in the year 2009? Guess I forgot to read volunteer waiver’s fine print.

HELP ME was scribbled across the fogged school bus window to my left. How can a parent say “no” when a child begs, “Please come on the field trip with us?”

 Easy. “No.”

But last Wednesday, the day of the deluge, I got on the bus to see a Christmas Carol with my daughter’s third grade class. A smell hit me upon boarding. The scent of an airliner. It had been a while since I rode a bus — or airplane, obviously — but the bus’s insides smelled as the cabin of a wide-body jet. Since when had they started filling school buses with jet fuel? Were we to sprout wings like some Magic School Bus mixed with Chitty Chitty Bang Bang? 

 Looking up, an escape hatch was carved in the roof. Wait a second. You’re telling me something could happen that would necessitate crawling out the roof?

 The girls and I sat next to an Emergency Exit window. There was a little red handle to pull which I inferred would cause something to happen. No instructions, no little packet tucked under the seat. Surely someone would pop on the bus and perform precise hand motions instructing us how to operate the door.

 No one showed. The driver pulled the door shut and off we went.

 Still wondering about the duties of occupying an emergency exit seat, I glanced up to see a Body Fluid Cleanup Kit. What on earth? This trip might include cleaning nose waste, open wound, or saliva drip from mouth of sleeping child?  

Roof-top escape hatches, emergency exit rows and body fluids. This was being a chaperone in the year 2009. That’s what I got for not reading the volunteer waiver’s fine print.

 Flooding cold rain outside and bus’s excellent heater resulted in Amazon-like conditions inside. I began to think of those tiny glazed frogs resting on mossy bottoms of long-forgotten terrariums. Halfway to Athens, I turned into a ceramic frog — one feverishly searching for aspirin with her wee webbed hands at the bottom of her purse.

Getting to the theater, we deplaned in a torrent. Crammed full of flying ghosts, redemption and Tiny Tim, the play was great fun. Then leaping over a rushing stream at the storm sewer, we got back on the bus.

Heading back to Madison, Hannah turned and laughed. “Mr. Davis is asleep.” Jeff Davis, another chaperone, sat with son Jack. I looked back. “He’s just resting his eyes.”

Asleep. The lucky guy.

Lots of children and adults nodded off on trip home. I felt it my job to stay awake lest any body fluids began springing forth. Thankfully, all were very tidy sleepers with minimal drooling so no need to reach for the clean-up kit.

We pulled into the school and the children filed into the cafeteria for bag lunches. I saw an opening and made a break for it. Kissing my daughter, I ran out into the rain and returned home to the sound of tornado sirens. Later I learned my friend, Mr. Davis, had the pleasure of experiencing an hour-long duck-and-cover lockdown at the elementary school.

Which I felt most just since God had provided him with that nice nap on the bus. Yes, lest we forget, the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh — even when chaperoning field trips.

For more observations in and around Morgan County travel to my blog, www.jamiemiles.com/blog