The Chaperone
Lauren [my wife]: I signed you up to be a chaperone for Liz’s class trip.
Me: You know I have a job as a lawyer. Right?
Lauren: I would take it a bit more seriously if you didn’t only claim you were a lawyer when you don’t want to do things.
Me: No, I don’t.
Lauren: And claim you’re a writer only when an attractive woman asks you what you do.
Me: That is not true.
Friday morning – Elementary School
Four first grade parents stand in the waiting room.
Mother: Hi Brett!
Me: Hi! I don’t say her name. Even though she’s Lauren’s friend and we’ve been out socially, and I’m 95 percent sure her name is Jen, I just can’t take a chance.
Jen?: Brett, since you have a daughter and I have a son, is it okay if I watch the boys and you watch the girls, and we’ll switch for bathroom breaks.
Me: I prefer the girls… for watching. Not the bathroom.
Another mother looks at me and rolls her eyes.
Bus
Mrs. T., my daughter Liz’s teacher, decided to do her own dividing of the kids. We each have a group, with me appropriately being given least number of kids – four including Liz.
I help get my group into their seats.
It should be noted that the coronavirus pandemic has just hit New Jersey. If there’s a place you want to be during the spread of the most contagious illness in a century, it’s on a school bus full of children.
Is it possible for me to chaperone four children all day without being within three feet of any of them?1
I even instinctively went to shake another father’s hand on the bus and he gave me his elbow.
Germaphobe Father: There should be a clap.
Me (bonding): Yes, let’s start a movement!
The bus ride goes fairly smoothly. I look at my phone, and listen to Howard Stern on my earbuds, which has to be some kind of violation. I do have brief flashes of a recurring nightmare, though. For some reason, I’m incapable of seeing a yellow bus without picturing it driving off a cliff. We are nowhere near a cliff at any point during the ride, but these are my thoughts nonetheless.2
Science and Space Museum
We arrive and they bring us into a room. A woman wearing a space suit instructs us. I always wonder how someone winds up with an unusual job like this. How do you decide you want to work in a Science Center? Then I remember that I pretend to be a writer when talking to hot girls.
Science Woman: Does anyone know what object we look through to see far away?
Kid: Binoculars!
Science Woman: Well yes, but I mean really far away.
I half-raise my hand.
Science Woman: Not you, Dad. It’s called a telescope. Well, if she was just going to say the answer, why couldn’t I do it?
It’s time to build a telescope out of random objects. I help Liz follow the instructions. Technically, I’m in charge of three other kids too, but if we’re being honest, I really only care about my own child’s experience.
The telescopes are ready and we try to look through them to see the trees out the window, but they’re not working. Really, just an enormous waste of time.
Spaceship
Another instructor leads all 17 of us into a portal the size of a telephone booth. We have to stand up against each other. Why don’t they just fly me straight to the market in Wuhan?
The portal opens on the other side.
Instructor: Okay, everyone. This is your spaceship. We are going to the moon.3
The room looks like the inside of a spaceship. There are all these computer stations: one you test water, another you test moon rocks. It’s kind of cool, actually. Every few minutes, the room starts shaking, as the spaceship is making its way out of Earth’s orbit.
I help Liz and her friend at a station. Suddenly, there’s an imaginary gas leak.
Instructor: Everyone get down and crawl around to try to find the leaking vent! Does this woman follow the news at all? Maybe we should have left crawling on the floor off the itinerary today.
Liz’s friend spots the gas leak and helps close it up, and we continue onto the moon, where we land safely.
Lunch
I drink a gallon of sanitizer, and then take out my lunch that Lauren made for me. I get up and call her.
Me: An almond butter sandwich?
Lauren: Yes.
Me: Isn’t a kid in the other class allergic to nuts?
Lauren: Oh, you’re eating with the other class?
Me: Yes, forget about that. More importantly, it’s on bread. You know I’m not eating bread. You think any of these kids are eating keto and will give me some of theirs?
I reluctantly begin eating the sandwich, across from another parent. This being civilized society, we are required to make conversation while we eat.
Me: This corona thing is crazy. Isn’t it?4
Planetarium
There is one activity planned for the afternoon. We are all going to squeeze into a bubble that I could only describe as a bouncy castle shaped like an igloo.
We go inside and sit on the floor, and above us are the stars and the moon.
Planetarium Guy: Venus is the brightest thing in the sky besides our moon.
The kids are being loud and he is losing patience quickly. It’s clear he doesn’t have his own children.
Random kid: Where is Pluto?
That’s a ridiculous question. Pluto is the furthest planet. Maybe he’s the kid with the nut allergy and he’s gone insane.
Planetarium Guy: We can’t see Pluto. It’s very far away. It’s not even really considered a planet anymore.
This is devastating news. I’ve always thought there were nine planets. Now we’re down to eight? How was this not a bigger story?
Bus ride home
I’m exhausted and just want to meditate. But Liz and her friends are standing up and yelling.
I am about to take control, when I see Mrs. T make her way to the back of the bus.
Unnecessarily long tangent – In high school, my friend, Alex, and I created this thing called “Law of Physics”, which surmises that there are certain things that can’t happen because the reaction would be too weird for the world to comprehend. Like, for example, saying something sexually inappropriate to your grandmother. We believed that if such a thing occurred, the Earth would fall off its access and everything would explode. None of this made any sense of course. Anyway, a cousin of “Law of Physics” is a child being with both their parent and teacher at the same time. It’s two worlds colliding and a child has no idea how to behave. They are perfect with their teachers, but never listen to their parents. What do they do now that we’re standing next to each other giving the same instruction? How can they appease both of us by listening and misbehaving at the same time?
Well, Mrs. T puts it to rest by doing this clap thing where she claps five times quickly. The kids immediately clap back and sit down. It’s a bit North Korea-ish, but also the most impressive thing I’ve ever seen.
I settle back in my seat and close my eyes for the remainder of the quiet ride back to school.
Bus exit
We file out of the bus. The teacher of the other class stands outside handing out forms. I notice, though, after she hands out each form, she licks her finger before handing the next form.
Teacher: Dad, would you like a review of what we learned today?
I give her the stare of death.
Teacher: Oh, I probably shouldn’t be licking my fingers. Here, take one from the bottom.
Me: I would prefer to go off the cliff.
Teacher: Excuse me?
Me: Nothing. No, I’m good.
Liz goes to take a sheet and I pull her away.
Me: You’re good honey. We’re going to do our own review later.
Liz: But Daddy!
Me: Liz!
Liz: Daddy, I want one.
I don’t know what to do, so I start clapping.
