Songs for the School Bus

Songs. Music. What would life be like without music? I know in our house, it would suck.  My alarm clock rouses me out of sleep with music, not a nasty buzzer. 15's is the same way. 13 sleeps with the radio on. We love music. First thing we do when we get in the car is to find our favorite song on XM. 34,953 stations, that damn song has to be on ONE of them! 15 is in the marching band, jazz band and symphonic band at her high school, and 13 is in band and jazz band in her middle school. Simply put, music is a huge part of life at Casa Snarkfest.

I don't have a musical bone in my body. But I do have a sarcastic streak (no really! I'm serious!) And I'm fairly creative. And devious. So I put all of those talents to good use, strictly for motivational purposes. Let me 'splain.

When 15 started middle school, and her bus came an hour and a half earlier than it did when she was in elementary school, we began to have some trouble with her making the bus. Many many times I'd end up driving her to school, or worse, making her walk! The school is almost exactly 1 mile from our house. We have no sidewalks here in the little burg in which we live, and there is one pretty nasty busy road, so I'd walk with her. But it was a pain in the ass to have to walk my kid to school because I had other things going on. I had another kid who needed to get up and get ready for school, I had to get ready for work. The world did NOT revolved around her. Call me selfish, I don't care. I needed to get her to get motivated to make the bus to school on time. 

Enter music. I've often said I'm a font of useless information, and I have a history of remembering song lyrics from songs I haven't heard in 30 years, so I used this super power of mine to create little ditties to motivate her. I'd take a song and change the lyrics to either celebrate her making the bus or lament her missing it.

When 13 entered middle school last year, 15 was entering high school, and now I had 2 who had to make a 7:00 a.m. bus. The challenges of raising teens. The drama, the heartache, the fighting, the clothes. WHO KNEW I'd also have the dreaded school bus to deal with too? THAT wasn't in the handbook! So when 13 started missing HER bus, I started adding her to the songs. 

Did I mention they HATE it? HATE may not even be strong enough. Because I put these songs on Facebook each morning. And my friends saw them. And their friends saw it. And their friends' parents. And their teachers. And when these outsiders would say something to 15 & 13, they'd come home aggravated. "Mom, would you PLEASE stop putting your songs on Facebook??" Sure, I'd say, just start making the bus and I'll stop.

But they didn't. And I didn't. It's not always easy. Once that last school bus leaves my driveway, I have to come up with clever lyrics to your favorite songs. I do not plan these in advance. Honestly. I sit down with my coffee, stare at my screen and hum tunes in my head. Sometimes I come up completely blank and the creative juices do not flow. It's on occasions like that when this is about all I can come up with:

This is the way they make the bus
Without a fuss
Without a cuss
This is the way they make the bus
so early, Monday morning.

Other times I get something awesome in my head and know exactly what I'm going to write. Here's one from this morning:

I awakened their lazy butts
I told them both to shower off
They made their buses and 
Blew me one last kiss

They didn't give me a hard time
I'm checking the basement for pods
They made their buses and
Blew me one last kiss

*Pink - Blow Me One Last Kiss

My one problem is this: once I write it out on FB, I hit 'enter' and that's the end. It's out there for everyone to see and I move on with my day. I don't keep track of them. Sometimes I use them more than once and this is only because I have forgotten that I've done them. I really should start keeping these in a file somewhere in case there is a book in my future. 

I'm also interested in taking suggestions. I promise, anyone offering suggestions will get full credit for their ideas. I may even pay you in donuts or beer. So let's have them! Tell me a good song, change the lyrics. Did they make it? Did they miss it? Show me something clever. And Blow Me One Last Kiss.