And they're off!

Why does it seem habitually acceptable for school field trips to be scheduled at a certain time, only to find the buses do not arrive promptly to pick up the students?

The kids are going on a trip today to Orlando. They have a behind-the-scenes tour at Universal Studios today, and one at Magic Kingdom tomorrow. They'll get to have fun in the parks as well, but they are also getting information about the technologies behind the park, etc. It ties in with the program's IT emphasis. It sounds like a lot of fun, and I'm beyond disappointed that I don't get to go. It's the first field trip he's ever had that I have not attended. Boo hoo for me...

But anyway, they were supposed to be there at 4am. Yes, four o'clock in the morning. Crazy, isn't it? That gave them time to review basic rules, take attendance, load the bus, and be ready to leave at 5am. I dutifully dragged my sleepy self out of bed at 3am so that I could wake him up, get him into the shower (I suggested numerous times that a shower the night before might be more prudent, but so much for that idea), feed him breakfast, make sure he didn't forget anything direly urgent, and get him to school on time. Although we constantly fight the 5-minutes-late-syndrome, we were actually there at the school right at 4am on the dot. Yippee for us.

We were the fourth vehicle.

We found the parking lot still gated closed.

The first teacher didn't arrive until 4:30, and that irritated me. One parent didn't show up with her child until 4:45, and commented that she could have slept in a little more since the buses were late. I confess, my thoughts were less than charitable about her loss of sleep. I'm sure those there before 4am weren't too sympathetic, either.

At 4:56am, the first bus pulled into the lot. At this point, the teachers went ahead and pulled everyone in to start their speeches, etc. Once the teachers actually started doing something, I left.

Seriously, can someone explain why this seems to happen a good 80% of the time? I have a hard time convincing myself that it really matters if I'm there at the designated time when I know good and well that everyone is just going to hang out in the parking lot for an hour anyway. That time of morning, I could have used another 45 minutes of sleep.

Now, please excuse me. I'm going to see if my friend Mr. Sandman is still in the vicinity and can return to spend a little more time with me this morning.