My Anthropological view of field trips

I agreed to be a chaperon for Sassy’s 4th grade field trip to a bowling alley. In case you don’t remember, 4th graders are 10 years old. Ten year-old girls are highly emotional people. It’s just as they get to the cusp of teenagers – those deadly tween years. I don’t remember being this emotional when I was ten, but what the hell do I know. That was 34 years ago.

I have no idea how anything in my life can be 34 years ago, but there you have it. I had the same realization last week in California when I realized I hadn’t been to Knott’s Berry Farm since I went for my 8th grade graduation. That was 30 years ago. Holy shit, I’m old. And my feet hurt. And I had to get reading glasses this year. It’s only a matter of time before I’m complaining about bursitis or gout and yelling for kids to get off my lawn. Well, at kids besides my own.

A N Y W A Y. My age issues are not the point of this blog.

I arrived at the school with the rest of the kids and we promptly climbed aboard the school bus bound for the bowling alley. Just so you know, school buses smell exactly the way you remember them. Like feet and smelly boys. So you’re thrilled to get off the bus at your destination and gasp fresh air only to walk inside the bowling alley to a worse stench. Older feet and smellier boys. And other people’s shoes. And burnt coffee. That lovely potpourri does not encourage you to breath deeply, I assure you.

Even though it doesn’t have anything to do with the children, there was a guy there with three women’s names tattooed on his neck. When I texted this to Ava she told me not to judge – they were very likely his wife and two daughters. That could have been true, except two of the three names were crossed out. I swear to Zeus.

We eventually got all the kids in rented shoes. It took awhile because there was not a single child with us who knew what size shoes they wore. Then all the

Hey! Ava and I are excitable people. That’s not the same is it?

kids made little teams of themselves and we got them signed into the scoring computers. Then I got to sit back and watch the show like Marlin Perkins on Wild Kingdom.

Every time one of the girls would knock down a pin, all the rest of the girls would squeal and there be a 12 minute hugging session reminiscent of the Academy Awards. As you can imagine very little bowling was actually accomplished until they got that out of their systems. Fairly early on, the alley people put up the gutter bumpers. If they hadn’t, I can assure you there would have been NO pins knocked down. As it was, it was more like watching an enormous pinball game than bowling.

The child would pick up the world lightest bowling ball – weighing in somewhere between lint and yarn – and hold it in front of her. Then she’d run full tilt up the lane only to come to a complete stop at the line, pause, then fling the ball down the lane with zero finesse. The ball would pinball in the vaguest direction of the pins, bouncing off the gutters as many as five times, careening back and forth, before it would gently tap a pin.

There was a brief moment of epic drama when one of the girls thought the other girls were talking about her behind her back. Copious tears and wailing and then, just as quickly, everyone was back to hugging.

It made my head spin.

All that aside, it was better than being at work.

Next week I agreed to go with The Bandit on their bowling field trip.

That should be truly outstanding with blog fodder. I anticipate less drama and more shenanigans. Stay tuned.