Don’t you remember with fondness your old school days when you got to ride a school bus to and from school every morning and afternoon, Monday through Friday?
Ah, the nostalgia that comes when recalling riding a damp old yellow bus that reeks of diesel, surrounded by obnoxious noisy kids and an engine is loud enough to drown out all existence. Not that I could hear it, anyway.
Fortunately, by age 16 and up, more and more of us will have upgraded to cars of our very own, aside from the sheltered people whose parents carpooled them to school, and will have abandoned the school bus system forever, and with good reason.
In a typical school bus, there are three types of people that you ride with, sort of like a full-fledged nation with its politics and social hierarchies. And their territories can be clearly defined by three sections of the bus: The Back, Mid-section and Front. Three empires. Two wars. Only one prospers.
The Back and Mid-sections have been bitter rivals from the dawn of time, fighting over everything from territory to ideals to trade. On the opposite side of the bus is The Front. They don’t concern themselves with Back and Mid-section politics, but their disputes are identical in nature: Wealth, bus seat control and power.
1. The Back: obnoxious, loud and annoying kids
They are all about dominion and blatant defiance of the law. It’s sort of like you’d except in a modern-day barbarian, but with iPhones, profanity and music cranked up to the maximum volume of which their gadgets are capable. Ironically enough, The Back Barbarians have formed themselves into tribes, and the most phat swag of them all are brought up as the tribal chief to rule them all. Know that football guy who tormented you in P.E.? He’s their chief.
In one tribe, you have the snob girls who yak away about fashion and crushing on the high school football quarterback. In another, you have jocks, bullies and jerks. Currently, the goths are attempting to migrate from the Mid-Section to the Back but it’s still a toss-up on that matter, and the Back is particularly fond of tiresome but strictly-followed pagan rituals, at one point involving sacrificing virgins (or Pokemon cards) to the gods.
2. The Mid-section: normal and civilized people who just want to get home
The staple to any school bus and preferred by many people is the Mid-section. They’ve endured a long day of classes and tests and just want to get home to their video games and pizza. They don’t want to put up with continued grief, especially from the Back, which has been the leading cause of their constant territory wars. At the same time, the Mid-section Normals have the largest territory of all the three sections, and is the driving force of peace and subjugation. The Back Barbarians are jealous of them to the point of bitter hatred, so they fight on with a passion with control as their goal.
The Front, however, poses no threat to the Mid-Section Normals, and from time to time, the Mid-Section and Front open up to friendly relations and trade.
3. The Front: nerds
You know what they look like, and they’re the most easily identified. Nerds comes in different shapes and sizes, however. Some hail from the marching band club, and they can be seen carrying obnoxiously large instruments such as tubas and giant drums that you carry sideways from your chest. Nerds from the Role-Playing guild are girly-chatting away about Dungeons & Dragons or World of Warcraft, and how one of them finally achieved a level 90 mage last night during one of their raids. Chess club nerds talk about chess. In general, anything technology or considered unpopular is a religion to them. Because of this, the Front is the most “religious.”
They don’t actively focus on power and bus-seat struggles, which the Mid-Section are fine with, but the Front is looking to expand their population by preaching and converting people to their nerdy ways. This could lead to a shortage of available bus seats, however, which forces some territory issues to come up.
Which section did you pledge your allegiance and loyalty to back in high school?
– The Deaf Student
