November 15th, 2007 by Jennine

Each morning as the children make the long walk down our driveway both our dog, Walter, and cat, Peter, follow the gang as they wait for the bus to pick them up. No amount of shooing can deter them from their goal to stop the human children from getting on the big yellow monster. I’ve even locked them in the garage only to have them both jump onto Darren’s workbench and jump through a window with is permanently stuck in the open position.

Several times Walter has taken the “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” approach and followed the children right onto the bus. Usually the kids can coax him off but one time he made his way to the back seat and refused to budge despite the roaring laughter of fellow passengers. I learned of this when my telephone rang at 7 AM:

“Uh, Mrs. J? This is Kelly the bus driver. It seems your dog has decided to join us today. Can you come down and get him?”

So with big fuzzy pink slippers and old bathrobe, much to the humiliation of my horrified children, I made the trek down the driveway to retrieve Walter. I looked a little like Phyllis Diller as I boarded that bus and made my way past several dozen feet to the rear. Walter was none to happy to see me, either. He knew in that moment that his victory was about to turn into defeat.

“WALTER! What are you doing?? Come on, boy! Momma’s got a treat!” I said with false enthusiasm.

He did his best Marlee Matlin impression and acted all deaf and stuff so I decided to pick him up. To this day it is the only time Walter has bared his teeth at me. Had I known that I would be humiliating myself in front of the children’s peers that morning, I might have tied my bathrobe in a square knot with a couple half-hitches. Instead, as I picked up my scholarly pooch, my bathrobe parted like the Red Sea exposing my Sponge Bob Square pants pajamas.

Do you know what it feels like to be laughed at by a couple dozen ADHD kids? I made my way back to the front of the bus with Walter whispering a growl and squirming the entire time.

“I’m so sorry!” I offered the driver without actually making eye contact. After all, I set him back at least 8 minutes from his normal route time.

“Ahh, that’s alright” he said in a loud voice, ” ‘The dogs on the bus go ‘woof-woof-woof, woof-woof-woof,woof-woof-woof! The dogs on the bus go woof-woof-woof, all through the town’ ” and then proceeded to laugh at his own bus-driving cleverness. He was still singing as the door closed and the bus pulled away.

It was a long walk back to the house.