Field trip!

I'm slugging coffee, trying to fire up the ol' synapses here to write you a witty and entertaining post.

Or, at the very least, a coherent one.

I went here today, with approximately four thousand very excited seventh-graders:

Newseum exterior

Photo © Sam Kittner/Newseum

I'll confess to you now that I was dreading this field trip like a person dreads having her wisdom teeth removed.  Maybe more, since there is no laughing gas provided to field trip chaperones.

They should do that.

I had actually sworn off field trips after the Magnifying Lens Incident of '10.  I wrote a blog post about it that went something like this:

The Monkey asked me not to come. I was fine with that, seeing how field trips are really not that fun for grown-ups. Then his teacher begged me. She went so far as to say that the trip wouldn't happen if I didn't go and she offered to bake me cookies. You know how I need to be needed (and how I love cookies), so of course I said yes.

Haarg.

(blah blah blah, stuff stuff stuff)

Who gives eleven and twelve year old boys magnifying lenses?

Two attempted fires and one (unrelated) trip to the emergency room later, we single-filed onto the bus and headed back to school.

So yeah. You heard it here first. That was my last field trip

Apparently I am not a woman of my word, because there I was, on the bus with the four thousand screeching pre- and just-teens.

And you know what?

I had a blast.  Really.  No laughing gas required.

Now don't get all excited and think that this is because there is such a monumental difference between 6th and 7th graders.  No.  I attribute the success of this journey to three things, which I will list for you now.  (I know you were worried that I wouldn't list them for you now.)

1. My seat-mate on the bus.  Cindy is a woman I thoroughly enjoy but rarely see.  That rare occasion of our meeting results in hundred-miles-an-hour-say-everything-and-catch-up kind of talking.  Where better to do this than on a bus full of wild banshees?  Okay, so there would be a million better places to do this, but hey, we work with what we're dealt.  It. Was. Wonderful.

2. The Newseum itself.  What a cool place!  We didn't have nearly enough time there, I definitely need to return.  Among the highlights for me:

• The 9/11 Gallery
• The Pulitzer Prize Photographs Gallery
• The Berlin Wall Gallery

3. Being a rebel.
Each chaperone was given a four-page worksheet on which to write three notable things from each gallery.  When questioned, the homeroom teach informed me that no, there wasn't a worksheet for each child (eight in my group), and yes, we were to all work on it together.

Yeah, not so much.

When we returned to school and all the other chaperones were dutifully handing in their homework, I told her I had chosen not to do it.  Her response?

"The apple doesn't fall far from the tree."