Where Are They Now?

There are a lot of t.v. shows and magazine articles dedicated to past celebrities and what they're doing now, but a commercial I saw today made me ask the same question regarding a trendy drink of the past. Remember Orbitz? The clear drinks with the colored gel balls in them? There was a time about ten years ago when all of a sudden, bottled drinks became super popular. You were cool if you carried around an Arizona Iced Tea bottle, or a Jones soda, even if you weren't drinking out of it. And of course you had to save the bottles and use them as bedroom decor. Orbitz attempted to catch on to that trend, but didn't quite hit the nail on the head. If you never heard of these mysterious drinks or just need a refresher course, here's a link:

Orbitz

Also, what ever happened to Dunkaroos? Are they still around? There is no other way to describe the graham cracker ones with vanilla frosting than by saying they were simply the bomb. I finally felt justified in my habit of buying containers of frosting and eating it with a spoon.

Now they've really crossed the line

Since the last post on the woes of school bus comaraderie, I experienced another strange phenomenon -- school bus comaraderie in the absence of said school bus. For those of you that don't know, Guy and I happen to live right down the road from the school bus "loading dock," as I like to call it. It's the place where buses are kept during non-school hours and where the drivers park their personal vehicles before hitting the road every day. Yesterday, on the way home from work, a silver pickup truck pulled out in front of me from the upper entrance of the loading dock parking lot. 100 feet down the road, he STOPS in front of the lower entrance and proceeds to allow two other cars, presumably his bus-driver buddies, to exit. Far be it from the guy to realize that if he would have just kept going at a normal speed, I was the only person behind him, and his friends would have been able to pull out with no more than a 30-second delay. Apparently school bus comaraderie runs too deep to be contained within the black-and-gold framework and impossible-to-open-straight, kick-out-in-case-of-emergency windows. It's not just a part of the job. It's a way of life.

Big Yellow Monsters

Driving by backpack-laden kids waiting at street corners, getting stuck in 15 mph school zones, hearing the echo of an announcer on a P.A. system when you drive by the high school football stadium on Friday night. Ahh, yes, the school year has begun. This is certainly the one time of year when I'm glad I steered clear of the profession my college degree was intended for. I'd much rather get stuck in school traffic than be in the classroom dealing with a new swarm of faces, attitudes, and forgotten homework excuses. But just because I'm not a teacher doesn't mean there's nothing for me to gripe about at the start of another school year. This time what gets me is what I like to call school bus comaraderie. You know what I'm talking about -- you're tailing a large, yellow bus, trying to get to work on time, and out of nowhere, it stops and lets two or three of its school bus friends pull out from a side street. Now you're not just stuck behind one view-obstructing nuisance that seems capable of going over 30 mph only when plowing over curbs, but four. They form a nice little train and chug on down the road. I know school buses are on a tight schedule and all, but does transporting America's future really make them above the code of driving etiquette? The way I see it, the future can wait. Just say no to school bus comaraderie (and while you're at it, you might as well say no to drugs, too.)