The Wheels on the Bus

Let me continue on this spearmint-scented bubble-filled journey through crack addicts and pillow face attacks and take us through a new land- a land where children run amok, chaos ensues, harassment is commonplace and traumatic memories are inevitable.
Ladies and gentlemen, I speak of The Land of the Yellow School Bus.
Yes, the bus. A childhood institution. Like most children, I started riding the bus in Kindergarten and rode it until I was 16 and we could all start rolling up to school in our new (used) cars, pumping sweet jams.
Now, I have many memories of the bus, 91% which are bad. The other 9% aren't even good necessarily (I don't have a sweet bus make-out story or anything) - they just aren't associated with shame and horror.
Here a few tasty bits:
Once, I got on the bus and this kid Stuart (who later went to Juvie) was like "Holy Hell. Look at that girl's glasses. She looks like a fat crazy grandmother" (I believe have mentioned my huge, bright blue glasses with highlights of red and yellow spray paint. I may provide you all with a picture when the time is right) I immediately begged my parents for contacts, and ceased wearing my glasses until I got them, which resulted in a lot of bumping into things and falling down.
Later on, in fifth grade, we had this lady bus driver who drove us to gym class. And she was, well, a total bitch. We hated her. And one day, she was yelling at us for being hooligans and she totally flicked us off! The nerve!! So, thinking we'd show her- the entire class reported her to the principal. The next day as we conspiratorially giggled and prepared for the grand apology and respect we so thought we deserved, she very stoically informed us that her pointer finger, as well as her ring finger, were in fact, missing. So, while she had been upset - it was her intention to point, not to offend with a vulgar gesture. Uh, whoops. Scratch that Principal Baum. We're good here.
And finally, the most traumatizing of all bus stories...There were some boys on my bus in middle school who used to play a game called..."Stick Shift" or "Race Car Driver." Ah, I still involuntarily cringe and shudder with the thought. Now, I'm not sure if the name of this game is self-explanatory - but it basically involved one of many popular (and very classy) middle school males sitting in the backseat of the bus, and well, using his penis as the stick shift to his imaginary race car. Now, the hilarity of this game revolved around what happened when the other schemers would find an unsuspecting female (often, me) and say "Hey Meredith, Jeff wants to talk to you." So gullible little awkward Meredith would waddle to the back of the bus to see what Popular Jeff wanted, and you can imagine her shock and horror when she discovered what awaited her there. And, its funny, because you'd think the kid exposing himself would be the one who would be embarrassed - but the laughs, points and jokes that always followed my unfortunate discoveries were enough to make me sit in the front seat next to the fingerless lady.
*Side note, Popular Jeff is now the married father of two.

I'm so happy to be back in the tub. Caroline, have you been working out? Those fingers are looking fine. Let me loofah them for you.