"The Code"

Monday mornings, you know and I know what the very idea of Monday mornings invokes.  To bus drivers it means, “The Monday Morning Finger”.  You pull up in front of a house on Monday morning and everyone is running late because of the exhausting weekend.  The weekend where we were supposed to relax and get away from work only to run ourselves silly trying to do all the things we could not get done during the week.  So again, everyone is late except the bus driver who is punctual, regardless of what the parents say.  The driver pulls up and stops, there is no sign of life and the driver prepares to pull away.  Just as the bus is about to leave, the door to the house opens slightly an arm protrudes through the opening, and sticks one finger up to the sky to be interpreted as, “Just one more minute”.  Often the arm may go up and down like the needle on a sewing machine adding time as if putting quarters in a parking meter.  The size of the opening and how the arm is clad can also tell you how Mom is attired and how far behind she is on her morning dressing ritual.  A small opening and a bare arm can be a dangerous thing when the child is finally ready and yanks the door wide open to an unprepared, scantily dressed mom.  Many a bus driver knows the mothers on the route better than they would like to.  Parents believe that somewhere in the bus driver’s code there is a rule that states: All bus drivers are under obligation to remain in front of a house as long as a parent holds up a finger.  Breaking of this code of conduct often results in a hand gesture that is far more inappropriate than the first.