Kelly and bus 39

School just started for the high school.  Mom's in minivans delivering children who just stare at their phones.

These might be the rudest assholes in the world.  Suburban moms in their minivans who are deeply bound to the concept of "get out of my way so that that I can deliver my precious cargo of douchebags" as if their delivery actually meant something.  The children are not so much rude as oblivious, though a great deal of the time, oblivious is indistinguishable from rude.

 These folks are the hangers-on usually.  The area is getting gentrified and the looks that these nasty, rude people give to their perceived inferiors and status competitors is truly astonishing in its arrogance.  To not automatically sort oneself into ones designated class is an affront to these right-thinking bearers of the current culture.

The white mom's in the new minivans are the worst of the lot.  Now, minivan is what I call the expanded (like their occupants) version of a car that currently hold thrall her in America, you know them, sport-utes, crossover, minivan.  They are the holy grail of grasping for a purchased status.

My boys did a lot of walking and bus riding to and from school.  But it takes a socially stronger kid to do such a mad act.   The bus allows you to hang with the hoi polloi, and realize that there are different cultures and classes.  Sometimes it even allows you to understand that these are people too.  

Mom delivering their spawn to school in an SUV removes any such unwanted equality.  Mom is acting in a manner that allows the princelings and princesslings (is this even a word?) a way to status signal and the mother to control every little thing about their yuppie larvae's lives.  The yuppie larvae passengers respond to this absolute control by diving deeper into their cell phones and their electronically mediated relationships.

I kinda think that this will go the wayside in the future.  When?  Who knows.  This odd bit of control and ownership is a function of a society where status signaling is rampant and spare cash and gas is available.  I can't imagine that this will remain the case forever.

So, maybe in the future, some kids will get used to stumbling out of their front door in time to catch the bus to school and walk over to 2300 and go down to where the bus parks and get on bus 39 early to grab to good seat.  The future Kelly will smile at the kid as he gets in and starts up the bus and ask how things went yesterday.

It sure beats the hell out of listening to your Mom all the way to school.