Fascism, rage, and the moral compass we all have which can bend completely backwards when packed into a sweaty, motorized box full of Nazis and overly-caffeinated, puberty-stricken howler monkeys.

December 4, 2010 10:47 AM

My generation never stormed the beaches of Normandy or got drafted to fight communism, but on that Twinkie-shaped nightmare we waged our own private Vietnam. The School Bus.
posted by Chipmazing (13 comments total)

I like how I read the first paragraph and think, really, dude? Vietnam, Normandy, aren't we overstating things? And then I scrolled down and saw the Aryan Nations compound photo, and was like, oh, Nazis. Touche.
posted by redsparkler at 10:52 AM on December 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh, but then nothing really happened.
posted by redsparkler at 10:54 AM on December 4, 2010 [2 favorites]

Honestly I wish that someone would just post a link to the entire Oatmeal site and be done with it instead of having seperate comics of his (all on the same site) pop up every few weeks.
That, and I would kind of love if people would just stop posting things from the Oatmeal, period. Yeah, I may get one or two chuckles out of it but I think there are much funnier things that could be posted.
posted by lauratheexplorer at 11:02 AM on December 4, 2010 [7 favorites]

I always lived within walking distance of the schools I went to. The downside: I rarely got a snow day, whereas the bus kids got one every time the roads iced over. The upside: I usually arrived home ten minutes after school ended and, more importantly, didn't have to take the school bus, which, I was told by friends less fortunate than I, was a Darwinian nightmare on wheels full of "puberty-stricken howler monkeys."
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:02 AM on December 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

Sometimes I feel like The Oatmeal is the Family Guy of webcomics.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 11:07 AM on December 4, 2010 [9 favorites]

just stop posting things from the Oatmeal, period

I like your progressive attitude.
posted by nervousfritz at 11:17 AM on December 4, 2010

Our high school bus driver installed a stereo in his bus and let us stand up in back. If we were lucky, we'd get a green light at this one intersection, he'd fly through it, we'd hit this one bump and get seriously airborne.
posted by Lucinda at 11:39 AM on December 4, 2010

I think World War One would probably be a better analogy for school bus warfare than Vietnam; alliances were forged because there was strength in numbers, everyone got bogged down in their established trenches/seats (if one of the kids at the front of the bus attempted to take a seat at the back, the results were comparable to a straightforward advance across open ground into machine gun fire), and the kids/countries who lost did so because they were stabbed in the back*.

* I know this isn't really why Germany lost...
posted by The Card Cheat at 11:42 AM on December 4, 2010

"[...] a bunch of rabid, down syndrome badgers [...]"

Err...was that really necessary?
posted by deticxe at 11:42 AM on December 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

There was a "group home" on my route too, for high school girls. Being stuck on the side of a mountain didn't appear to limit their amazing access to contraband.

The compounds were much farther up the mountain. The buses didn't go there.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:42 AM on December 4, 2010

I chuckled.
posted by fixedgear at 11:43 AM on December 4, 2010

When I was in elementary school in Battle Creek, MI, my bus stop was at the end of the route. Jr. High as well as elementary rode the same bus, which meant that by the time my bus arrived, all the seats were taken except for the ones occupied by lone Jr. High maniacs.

Most days I would just stand in the aisle (this was before every aspect of childrens' lives was scrutinized for adherence to obsessive safety rules; I'm sure my daughter wouldn't be allowed to stand during her bus ride now, for instance.) But, some days, it would get too much for my pride, and I'd try to get a seat with one of the LJHM's.

This usually involved weathering being called a few names, maybe having punches faked my way. Sometimes I'd get a seat, sometimes I wouldn't.

One day I decided I was going to have a seat that day. I just wasn't in the mood for the humiliation of being forced to stand while there were empty seats. So I sat down next to the first LJHM, who promptly shoved me out into the aisle on my ass. I was ready, though, and came up with my heaviest school book and bopped him over the head with it. He instantly responded with a right jab which caught me square in the eye.

I had a shiner for the next few days. All my teachers and the principal at the elementary were shocked that peaceful and passive Bovious would have gotten in a fight.

One day, the kid who gave me the shiner was in the hall. He'd ridden with his mom to pick up his kid brother. I tried to swing past him but he stopped me and looked at my eye. "Hey, kid," he said, "You showed some guts."

I was dumbstruck. I felt like I had earned some small measure of approval from the LJHM. This notion was disproved within the next few days, when he punched me in the mouth the next time I tried to sit next to him.
posted by bovious at 11:46 AM on December 4, 2010 [1 favorite]

The bus was pretty bad. A relatively minor thing that illustrates the whole absence of sane society: this girl who lived two houses down from me used to sit behind me and pull my hair. In high school.

Also, I remember when I was small (and smaller than the other children, for sure), sometimes when the bus would go around corners I would slide right off the hard plastic seat into the aisle. Most of the time I remembered to hold on, though.
posted by amtho at 12:02 PM on December 4, 2010