I am a school bus driver. I cannot, nor will I, pretend to understand the educational system involved in the lives of the children I drive daily. I grow more and more perplexed by the obsession with chickens on my bus.
My route has me picking up kids from four farms, but the rest are in town and live in houses. The four farms are not poultry-related in any way. I see no evidence of chickens, not even as a side hobby at these farms. The obsession with chickens is perplexing.
For the past week, I have had my entire bus bawk like chickens, a deep discussion about whether boys could tell the difference between kissing a girl or a chicken and a lengthy debate on the merits of getting married to a chicken nugget.
Yesterday, I had a boy do the chicken dance up and down the aisle.
I had come to an intersection and was impressed with the amount of traffic that I had to wait for. My impression revealed itself with an audible “Wow.” A boy came right up to see what I was looking at. I explained to him that there was a lot of traffic and that he was to be seated.
He returns to his seat, unhappy about being told to sit down. Then a thought goes through his head, and he goes: “BAWK.”
Oh God, that was the thought that went through my head. What is this thing about chickens???
He bawks again, starts to flap his arms, and struts around the aisle like a chicken.
Children are treasures. They are tomorrow’s leaders. The things they learn today will guide them into the future.
Is our future as a society going to be about chickens? Only time will tell.
