The Significance of the Back of the Bus

Back in grade 7 or 8, we were going on a ski trip and had been corralled like cattle into the GP room to wait for the buses to arrive.  The room was thick with anticipation, both for the actual trip and to see who would get the back of the bus.

- Quick pause for those of you who have never been bussed to school.  Seating on a school bus is like a hierarchy of coolness.  Like chickens sorting out their pecking order, so too are tweens in determining the seating arrangement of a bus. -

Back in the GP room, I was front and center at the closed door, fiddling with the metal latch to control my tension.  Little to my knowledge, the buses had arrived out front and the teachers, having heard the excited din of the auditorium, were strategically arranging themselves so as not to get trampled.

Suddenly -with my thumb still in the metal latch- the doors were flung open, tearing my thumbnail nearly clean off.

I ran at the head of the stampede...both out of searing pain and stubborn determination to stake my claim.  Once my gear was safely guarding the most coveted of all vinyl benches, I had to wait for the rest of the bus to fill up before I could do anything about my mangled thumb.  

As soon as I was able, I bee-lined for the office.  At this point my thumb was on fire and shooting flaming needles up my arm.  The nail was now only partially lodged in my nail bed and the soft white flesh underneath was curdling with blood and oil. I threw open the office door and as my vision went black and my hearing faded I shouted "I need Tylenol!"

Back then Tylenol counted as medicine so instead I got an orange juice box, a bandaid, and a stern suggestion to not go skiing.  Which I obviously ignored.

After a few hills my hands were too cold to register the pain anymore, but by the end of the day when I took off my glove, I left the thumbnail behind in the pocket of my mitten.

Such is the cost of popularity.