Think about it:
+ Upside-down travel going at top speeds.
+ Parlor games of useless skill garnering insanely large stuffed characters.
+ Water adventures rendering previously dry tanned high school girls into wet tanned high school girls.
+ A cavalcade of cuisine stretching around the seven continents yet all mysteriously tasting like chicken fingers.
+ Secondary rides that solicite fear of architectural fallapart.
+ Caricature artists that excell in highlighting the very physical attributes their subjects strive to keep hidden.
+ Gift shops with clothing that can be purchased (slightly worn) six months later at any Salvation Army.
And as glorious as it all is, can you believe that none of this is fun when it is being watched instead of enjoyed?
At the high school of which I am employed, it was the time of the year for our senior trip. Despite the fact that I teach special education, I nevertheless remained locked into having to chaperone the trip because two of my students were seniors. One of my students, Fred, is an extremely high-functioning autistic and might even be mistaken for a perfectly normal average teenager if he wasn't so horrific at making passes at each and every high school girl in his grade. * Watching Fred try to impress the popular girls is like watching a toddler on a tricycle honk the bike horn in an intimidating manner at a passing Harley.
+ Upside-down travel going at top speeds.
+ Parlor games of useless skill garnering insanely large stuffed characters.
+ Water adventures rendering previously dry tanned high school girls into wet tanned high school girls.
+ A cavalcade of cuisine stretching around the seven continents yet all mysteriously tasting like chicken fingers.
+ Secondary rides that solicite fear of architectural fallapart.
+ Caricature artists that excell in highlighting the very physical attributes their subjects strive to keep hidden.
+ Gift shops with clothing that can be purchased (slightly worn) six months later at any Salvation Army.
And as glorious as it all is, can you believe that none of this is fun when it is being watched instead of enjoyed?
At the high school of which I am employed, it was the time of the year for our senior trip. Despite the fact that I teach special education, I nevertheless remained locked into having to chaperone the trip because two of my students were seniors. One of my students, Fred, is an extremely high-functioning autistic and might even be mistaken for a perfectly normal average teenager if he wasn't so horrific at making passes at each and every high school girl in his grade. * Watching Fred try to impress the popular girls is like watching a toddler on a tricycle honk the bike horn in an intimidating manner at a passing Harley.
It's stupidly fruitless and that's why it's funny.
Alas, I wasn't sent to chaperon this trip to critique Fred's wooing technique. Fred would end up being fine on his own, hovering around his classmates. No, I was there for Johnny, or 'Big Moosey' as I prefer to refer to him. Big Moosey is about 6'2'' and muscular. I don't know how he got this build. His parents are wee and all he does all day is sit in front of the television.
There are about 70 baseball players shooting themselves full of steroids in hopes of looking like Big Moosey.
Big Moosey, for as big as he is, is a monumental sissy. It's epic. Moose can chew a Buick in half, but he's scared to death of his own shoe coming untied. And this monumental sissitude is what has compelled me this day to the amusement park.
When you work in a special education program, you don't work for the school, you work for the parents. And the parents of our special batch of students don't believe themselves to have given birth to humans so much as they believe they've given birth to humanoid glass figurines that shatter if mishandled in any way. You can imagine having an 18-year-old teenager that is as helpless as a toddler would be pretty damn draining. This explains why Mama Moosey and Papi Moosey opted to request a chaperone to a senior destination that probably resembles Hell to someone like Moose instead of just keeping him home. His folks grabbed the brass ring: an entire day without Moose to worry about.
That job went to some other poor sucker.
From the moment I found a spot on the schoolbus, I felt like a leper. It might have been because I was sitting in the front seat of a big yellow school bus and everyone knows the people that sit there are either: a) authority figures or b) authority figure kiss-asses. And if you didn't qualify for either of these, you hated those who did. My feelings of leprecy might also have been because after fifteen minutes of listening to two science fiction nerds battle rhyme one another, I leaned over and reminded then both that they got scholarships to college and should probably save the anger of the streets for someone who knew what the hell they were babbling about.
From the moment I found a spot on the schoolbus, I felt like a leper. It might have been because I was sitting in the front seat of a big yellow school bus and everyone knows the people that sit there are either: a) authority figures or b) authority figure kiss-asses. And if you didn't qualify for either of these, you hated those who did. My feelings of leprecy might also have been because after fifteen minutes of listening to two science fiction nerds battle rhyme one another, I leaned over and reminded then both that they got scholarships to college and should probably save the anger of the streets for someone who knew what the hell they were babbling about.
Hard livin' - to paraphrase T.I. - whut'chu know about 'dat?
In all honesty, the leperous feelings probably had little to do with my position on the bus or the geeks sitting nearby and more to do with the realization that high school seniors are the most attractive creatures on earth. Even the ugly seniors are more attractive than most of the world's population. This is all a hard pill for me to swallow, as I am not so far removed from this period of my life. Nevertheless, I am most certainly on my "beauty downslope", some people's slopes are steeper than others, but we're all on it once we leave high school.
Anyway, if you are a senior, I feel it my duty to warn you that you are at the pinnacle of your attractiveness; you will never again look as good as you do right now.
Revel in it.
Flaunt it.
Roll around in it like a pig in slop because before you know it, you'll be on the far side of your 20s noticing some high schooler's thong and feeling kinda gross about it.
Things couldn't have been described as "improving" upon our arrival at the park; it was about 45° and overcast and Big Moosey was eminating a smell remeniscent to a pair of Huggies soaked in soured buttermilk. In the past, my first stop at the amusement park had usually been a spinny-twirly secondary attraction. Something fun, but not epic and nothing with a line more than fifteen people deep. Today however, my first stop was apparently going to be the restrooms located in Paul Bunyan's Tiny Timber Town.
Things couldn't have been described as "improving" upon our arrival at the park; it was about 45° and overcast and Big Moosey was eminating a smell remeniscent to a pair of Huggies soaked in soured buttermilk. In the past, my first stop at the amusement park had usually been a spinny-twirly secondary attraction. Something fun, but not epic and nothing with a line more than fifteen people deep. Today however, my first stop was apparently going to be the restrooms located in Paul Bunyan's Tiny Timber Town.
From everything I've either read or witnessed first-hand, "incontinence" was never a noticed symptom of autism.
Moosey was setting a precedent.
Without getting too graphic, when a normal person's sphyncter muscle detects the need to - ahem - expunge, we feel it.
We clench.
We stop whatever we were doing to take care of the problem.
Not Big Moosey. Big Moosey skips this stage and dumps in his pants. This dump serves as his signifyer that a problem is now in need of a solution. But Moose isn't what anyone would call a "thinker". He doesn't work problems very well and so his solution to his new "loaf conundrum" is to stuff a hand down the back of his pants, root around for a bit, and inspect whatever he pulls up (just to clarify that it is indeed poop... and not anything, y'know... wierd).
So with eight hours to kill in this infernal hellhole, I was able to successfully utilize one of those hours by standing outside a bathroom stall and "coaching" Moose through the process of wiping the lion's share of fecal matter from his pants and person. **
One hour later we emerge from the bathroom, where I am positive that word had spread throughout the park about the gigantic teenager who shat himself and his helper-friend who was kind enough to talk him through it like a hostage negotiator. One hour down, I still had a long battle with Moose's sissy tendencies.
Moose hates speed.
Moose hates heights.
Moose hates crowds.
Moose hates noise.
Moose hates getting wet.
I hate Moose's parents for sending him here.
All day long I kept half-expecting Big Moosey to snap into normalcy; to suddenly apologize to me for being so useless, the way the designated driver might expect his drunk buddy he toted around the night before to call him up the next morning:
"Uh dude. I'm sorry about the way I acted last night, man. I don't know what I was thinkin'. I was out of control there for a little while. You were just trying to show me a good time and I wigged out at the bar and took a dump on that ladies lawn..."
"Uh, Mr. S. I'm sorry about the way I've been acting today. I don't know what I was thinkin'. I was kinda autistic there for a little while. You were just trying to show me a good time and I wigged out over at The Minderaser and took a dump over in Timber Town..."
This apology was never forthcoming.
We spent the next five or six hours walking laps around the park, Big Moosey never less than two steps behind me. No matter how fast or slow I walked, he made sure he always remained in my blind spot; like Seabiscuit before the final stretch. I kept having to crane my neck to make sure he wasn't preparing to stab me. How can someone who recently defecated himself and felt no inward compulsion to clean it up, be such a crackshot with transitory spacial relations?
I almost got Moosey on the mild ride named the Air Sky Tram. Essentially, this was an enclosed ski lift-type contraption that moved slowly high above the center of the amusement park. And although the view was probably nice, the only people this could have possibly entertained were the elderly and well... perhaps the frightened mentally disabled.
Bored out of my mind, I spent nearly twenty minutes convincing Moose the AirSkyTram was the most awesome thing ever. He never fell for it hook-line-sinker, but he fell for it enough to get in line. We stood in line for nearly fifteen minutes until some smartass thirtysomething looking to makeout with his girlfriend high above the park, begins telling her an urban legend about "some guy" who began rocking the ski-lift cages enough that one of them opened and sent the poor bastard plunging hundreds of feet to his death smack dab in LooneyTunes Movie Town.
Moose hates heights.
Moose hates crowds.
Moose hates noise.
Moose hates getting wet.
I hate Moose's parents for sending him here.
All day long I kept half-expecting Big Moosey to snap into normalcy; to suddenly apologize to me for being so useless, the way the designated driver might expect his drunk buddy he toted around the night before to call him up the next morning:
"Uh dude. I'm sorry about the way I acted last night, man. I don't know what I was thinkin'. I was out of control there for a little while. You were just trying to show me a good time and I wigged out at the bar and took a dump on that ladies lawn..."
"Uh, Mr. S. I'm sorry about the way I've been acting today. I don't know what I was thinkin'. I was kinda autistic there for a little while. You were just trying to show me a good time and I wigged out over at The Minderaser and took a dump over in Timber Town..."
This apology was never forthcoming.
We spent the next five or six hours walking laps around the park, Big Moosey never less than two steps behind me. No matter how fast or slow I walked, he made sure he always remained in my blind spot; like Seabiscuit before the final stretch. I kept having to crane my neck to make sure he wasn't preparing to stab me. How can someone who recently defecated himself and felt no inward compulsion to clean it up, be such a crackshot with transitory spacial relations?
I almost got Moosey on the mild ride named the Air Sky Tram. Essentially, this was an enclosed ski lift-type contraption that moved slowly high above the center of the amusement park. And although the view was probably nice, the only people this could have possibly entertained were the elderly and well... perhaps the frightened mentally disabled.
Bored out of my mind, I spent nearly twenty minutes convincing Moose the AirSkyTram was the most awesome thing ever. He never fell for it hook-line-sinker, but he fell for it enough to get in line. We stood in line for nearly fifteen minutes until some smartass thirtysomething looking to makeout with his girlfriend high above the park, begins telling her an urban legend about "some guy" who began rocking the ski-lift cages enough that one of them opened and sent the poor bastard plunging hundreds of feet to his death smack dab in LooneyTunes Movie Town.
Moosey didn't hear a damn word I said to him all day of course, but he hears this joker crystal clear and immediately backs out of line. Doesn't even say goodbye. He turns, he goes.
He's gone.
Another four laps around the park.
I hate my life. It was cold and gloomy and boring and I paid $26 for a hotdog and a watered down Pepsi...
Least it wasn't raining, I thought to myself.
Least it wasn't raining, I thought to myself.
It then began raining.
I wanted to punch things. To be honest, I wanted to punch Moose. He didn't deserve to be punched, which is why I opted to keep my hands to myself, but I imagined it in my head.
I imagined it over and over and over.
He probably wouldn't feel my punches. He's a big guy. He's challenged, but he's physically large, like Lenny from that Steinbeck novel. I could punch him and he would probably be okay.
He probably wouldn't feel my punches. He's a big guy. He's challenged, but he's physically large, like Lenny from that Steinbeck novel. I could punch him and he would probably be okay.
But I bet I would have to stop being his teacher though and I need the money. And it's not his fault. Moose doesn't deserve my violence. His parents do, but not him. Can I get away with punching Moosey's dad? I bet Moosey's dad wouldn't punch back, but I also bet he would sue me and most likely I'd get fired and be back to needing money and so-on.
I need to punch something. Something needs to get smashed by me. Is there any way I can punch Moosey's dad without him knowing it was me? Sneaky-style violence so I can vent my frustration and still keep my job? No. I can't think of anything. Maybe I can just punch one of these little junior high turds with Led Zeppelin shirts on... yeah that'd make me feel much better...
It was at this point that Moose chimed in, "I can drive a car, Mr. S."
It was at this point that Moose chimed in, "I can drive a car, Mr. S."
I had gotten pretty good at filtering out most of the babble that Moose spewed in his daily routine, but this wasn't babble, he noticed something. He noticed something pure and beautiful and perfect. He problem-solved and vocalized his solution (I'd like to think that I taught him that). And there it stood in the middle of CrackAxle Canyon, some hillbilly tune called "Honkeytonk Kadunkadunk" playing loudly in the background.
A tear formed at the corner of my eye.
I took off my hat in respect.
Moose and I stood there and saw the future, what the remainder of our time at the amusement park would be:
Bumper cars.
For the next hour-and-a-half Moosey and I went on the bumper cars in spurts of 120 seconds, waiting in line for three minutes and riding the bumper cars again. I rammed the piss out of my student. It was what we were supposed to do; it was the entire point. I aimed only for him. The track held forty cars, but there was only one that I recognized as my enemy. Now it was my turn to stay in his periphery.
Bumper cars.
For the next hour-and-a-half Moosey and I went on the bumper cars in spurts of 120 seconds, waiting in line for three minutes and riding the bumper cars again. I rammed the piss out of my student. It was what we were supposed to do; it was the entire point. I aimed only for him. The track held forty cars, but there was only one that I recognized as my enemy. Now it was my turn to stay in his periphery.
Now I was Seabiscuit.
WHAM! That's for putting me in a position of guiltily trying to avoid the thong tops of teenage girls all day!
WHAM! That's for showing me the poop on your finger and having me identify it for you.
WHAM! That's for eating a third of my hotdog because you thought it was yours!
WHAM! That's for loudly talking all the way through the magic show, drawing attention to us and forcing me to become an impromptu assistant on one of his tricks!
WHAM! That's for hugging every Looney Tunes mascot in the park! Tweety twice!
WHAM! That didn't have a specific purpose but it felt right and it felt good!
I can't say that I left the amusment park feeling fulfilled, I didn't. It was the worst experience I've ever had at a place I never thought I'd ever have a bad experince. That being said, I bonded more with Moose that day than I had with any of my other students. We went though a battle. He didn't want to be there any more than I did. It wasn't our fault and we dealt with it as best we could. He messed himself and walked several hundred miles over the course of the day and I became a pervert who felt constant pangs of violence.
WHAM! That's for putting me in a position of guiltily trying to avoid the thong tops of teenage girls all day!
WHAM! That's for showing me the poop on your finger and having me identify it for you.
WHAM! That's for eating a third of my hotdog because you thought it was yours!
WHAM! That's for loudly talking all the way through the magic show, drawing attention to us and forcing me to become an impromptu assistant on one of his tricks!
WHAM! That's for hugging every Looney Tunes mascot in the park! Tweety twice!
WHAM! That didn't have a specific purpose but it felt right and it felt good!
I can't say that I left the amusment park feeling fulfilled, I didn't. It was the worst experience I've ever had at a place I never thought I'd ever have a bad experince. That being said, I bonded more with Moose that day than I had with any of my other students. We went though a battle. He didn't want to be there any more than I did. It wasn't our fault and we dealt with it as best we could. He messed himself and walked several hundred miles over the course of the day and I became a pervert who felt constant pangs of violence.
This is nomally the time I'd say that things could have been worse, but really, could they have?
====================================
* Thinking back on myself as a senior in high school, maybe being awkward around girls isn't such a solid way to measure one's mental deficiencies.
** Before you suggest that I should have purchased a new pair of boxer shorts for the kid in a nearby merchandise shop, you should know that a) I did consider this and in fact, checked it out only to find that b) the park only sells boxer shorts c) Moose only wears briefs and d) even if I thought I could convince the big sissy to switch underthings midday, the only available sizes were much too small for him.
====================================
* Thinking back on myself as a senior in high school, maybe being awkward around girls isn't such a solid way to measure one's mental deficiencies.
** Before you suggest that I should have purchased a new pair of boxer shorts for the kid in a nearby merchandise shop, you should know that a) I did consider this and in fact, checked it out only to find that b) the park only sells boxer shorts c) Moose only wears briefs and d) even if I thought I could convince the big sissy to switch underthings midday, the only available sizes were much too small for him.
So poo-patrol it was.
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