“Consequences”

A normally cheerful student entered the bus with his hat turned backwards and a disgruntled look on his face.  As he sat there he mumbled some rather grumpy remarks to those that were around him who in turn looked back at him with very puzzled looks wondering what they had done.  It looked as if this situation would continue to deteriorate.  It was time for “Bad Attitude Intervention”.  I called his name and he turned his furrowed brow toward me.  “First things first,” I started.  “I believe the first step to making this a better day would to be to turn that hat around so that you look like somebody who knows the front from back and not look like a hood.”  He slowly complied with the request. “Ok, handsome young man let’s move to step number two.”  There was not a smile on his face but the frown had subsided somewhat.  “Now I want you to look at each of the friends that are seated around you and say something nice about each of them and they will say something nice about you.”  There was an exchange of pleasantries such as, “You’re a good friend, I like your hat, you’re funny, and you’re nice.”  As they looked at each other they begin to laugh and all was ended in good humor.  Believing all was well, I left them alone.  Little did I know, the snowball of happiness that I had put in motion was continuing downhill and was about to end in disaster.  The first sign was on hearing the now happy young man singing, “I’m a tap dancing monkey, I’m a tap dancing monkey.”  He had removed from his backpack an old fashion sock monkey and it was dancing across the back of the seat.  The musical cabaret continued with a performance of “Watch me whip, whip, watch me nae, nae.”  There was a slight intermission with a discussion of what exactly was a nae?  Then the snowball crashed into the peaceful valley below with sock monkey preforming “I came in like a wrecking ball”.  This is not something you want to see a sock monkey preform.  It will crush and destroy precious sock monkey memories that you have cherished from your childhood.  Note to self; a frown and furrowed brow are much preferred over an illicit sock monkey dance.