Karma

Disclaimer: I do realize that by sharing the following story, I am setting myself up for some serious lectures from all sorts of people. I accept that, and still have decided to share this story because it is pretty funny to me. Just another day in my life.

Have you ever seen someone on the side of the road either broken down or hitch hiking, and your heart went out to them? Have you ever stopped and helped someone in that situation? I can respond in the affirmative in both instances. Remember this as you read. It will all make sense eventually.

This week I have had the chance to play bus driver for a few field trips. We went to a funeral home on Monday for our CSI class, and it was an informative visit. The driving was a bit rough in a few places; when a bus scrapes bottom, it scrapes bottom for a looooong time because so much of it hangs over the wheels.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to put my bus driving skills to a real test. The middle school teachers planned to attend Education Day sponsored by the Reno Aces Baseball Team, and asked if I would be willing to drive them and then attend the game as a chaperone. I had a few concerns about driving such a large vehicle in a more heavily trafficked area, but was reassured by all three of the other teachers attending that they knew EXACTLY where we were going and how to get there, so I wouldn't have to worry about any major turnarounds and re-routing.

When we arrived at our destination, I realized that none of them knew where we were going, nor did they completely grasp how the whole field trip was organized. It was somewhat fun to try and figure it all out, and I even had one of the teachers extremely nervous because she thought I was going to hit some parked cars on the side of the road. We had a close call when I almost turned down a street that we would have had to back out of, but I was able to swing the front end back out onto the main road before we had passed the point of no return.

Once we finally got the students and two teachers to the ball park we were faced with another dilemma; where do we park the bus in a city? We were given a map to a place where another school district was parking their buses for the day, but my navigator couldn't read the map which necessitated more turning around; not an easy feat in a bus. When she finally read the directions to me, I knew where we were supposed to go. The place where they wanted us to park our bus was about three miles from the ball park. This wouldn't have been a problem for any old bus driver because it's not very often that bus drivers are also participants in the field trip. It was a big problem for us, mostly because we had a large cooler bag of ice and water, and my co-worker has a bad knee.

As we were driving over to the parking area, my co-worker kept complaining about how far away we were getting from the field and I told her that we were going to hitch hike on the way back. At first I was kidding, but then the more I thought about it, and then prayed about it, it didn't seem like the wrong thing to do. I have had to hitch hike at other times in my life and didn't really feel that it would be such a bad thing in this situation either. She told me that she WOULD NOT hitch hike. After we loaded everything up and started carrying the heavy cooler between us, she started complaining. I told her that I was going to stick my thumb out, and I did. After a while she looked over and realized that I really was sticking my thumb out and told me to put it down. I had only had it out for about two minutes when a little two-door, hatch-back CRV pulled over.

My co-worker was saying that she was not going to get in any car, but as the driver got out, he walked to his hatch-back and popped it open for us to put our cooler in. He asked how far we were going and we told him. He said he was going about a block away from there and would take us. The funny part was that my co-worker, who is usually extremely strong-willed and outspoken, was as quiet as a mouse.

There were already two people in this vehicle, one in the front who was so hammered that he couldn't get out to let us in, and one in the back holding a cat. We had to push the man and the seat forward to slide into the back seat. My co-worker made me get in first, so I slid next to the woman in the back seat with the cat. My co-worker made it in next to me with little difficulty, but started crossing herself and saying her "Mother Mary...." prayers as soon as no one was looking at her.

I made small talk with the woman in the back seat and the driver as we went to the ball field in their little CRV. The man in the passenger seat would occasionally try to join the conversation, but was usually cut off by the driver because his words were so slurred and slow. The cat started to freak out and crawl all over and claw at my feet. When he made it to my co-worker's feet, she kind of let out a little squeal and jumped. We were in the car no longer than five minutes and got out right in front of the field.

We thanked the driver for the ride and finished our conversation about the good karma coming his way for picking us up, then made our way over to the gates. My co-worker was in absolute shock that we had just hitch hiked. She was kind of hitting me for making her get in the car, but grateful that we didn't have to walk the three miles to the game. She is a paranoid mother though, and swore that she would never tell her daughters what I made her do.

Somehow I knew that we would be okay, and that it wasn't a bad thing to do at that time. We didn't tell the students, but the two other teachers thought it was hilarious! When we got back to the school my co-worker had our vice principal in tears as she told him the story. I know that hitch hiking is inherently not the best or first option one should resort to in any situation, but I did it in this situation, as I have in other situations, and things were okay. But don't worry, I'm not going to make it a habit.