Why the bus seems like a lot work

Every Monday and Wednesday I have to tutor two kids. From 4-5pm I tutor a 6^th grader who refuses to listen to his teacher, follow directions, or stop playing Madden on his Playstation when his mom asks him to. I like him. From 6-7pm I tutor an 8^th grader who still adds with his fingers, has a mom who won’t let him play Halo because there is too much killing involved, and takes long drinks of water and pretends to be sleepy when he doesn’t want to do math. I… am okay with him. I usually have to set an alarm on these, oh so busy, days so that I make sure I have all my shit ready for my two long hours of work.

Every Monday and Wednesday I tell myself I’m going to leave the house at 2:15 and print out the materials I need for tutoring, prepare the lesson plan for the day, and eat a decent meal before I leave.

Every Monday and Wednesday I play a game on kongregate.com until 2:55 then realize I haven’t brushed my teeth yet today and am still wearing my towel. I run out the door at 3:15, sprinting to catch the 3:21 bus to get to my tutoring appointment. I spend half my time on the bus formulating a plan of action that won’t involve the lesson plans that I forgot to print out (this usually involves scribbling math problems on the backs of old lesson plans). The other half the time I’m on the bus regretting the fact that I forgot to bring a book to read.

I have to wait 10 minutes in the freezing cold between my two busses I have to take to get to my 6^th grader and it’s because of those ten minutes that I have seriously contemplated quitting my one form of barely-income. It sometimes doesn’t seem worth $18.75 to huddle around a “warming” lamp with a bunch of other poor people.

After tutoring my first student, I have to take the busses back home for my second student. Since I’ve already been annoyed by waiting in the cold, and because I’ve only eaten one “bowl” of cereal at this point in the day (read my first blog entry for an explanation of what a “bowl” is), I usually grab a $0.99 Chicken Snacker and a small Frosty from Wendy’s while I wait for the bus. I always sit in a seat near the window so I can see down the street far enough that I will spot the bus coming before it gets to the stop, then I cross the street and get on the bus while it waits for the red light to change. Today the bus came before I finished my meal. I still had two bites left of my sandwich and I had only slurped down half of my frosty.

I pulled a Kobayashi, shoving the chicken down my throat and chugging my frosty in the time it took me to get to the trash can. Then I ran out the door to catch the bus. You know what’s more painful than sprinting immediately after eating the cheapest thing on a fast food menu? No, you don’t. Because nothing is more painful. It’s like your body is saying: “seriously dude? You really thought any of the things you just did were a good idea? Are you trying to kill me? You know what, fuck you. I’m gonna make you feel an ounce of pain for each year you just took off your life. That’s like a pound of pain. And a pound of pain is a large amount of pain. It hurts.”

When I finally got to the bus, breathing like a 500 pound man on a treadmill, I tried to say thank you to the bus driver but it came out “spanks” and I had a little frosty come back up into my mouth.

I made it to my second tutoring assignment and walked home. I think I’m gonna go to sleep early today, I’m tired.