The Autodidact

Yesterday I spent a few terrifying moments caught in the middle of a school bus convoy. I had dropped my oldest daughter off at a high school where she is temporarily employed as a seamstress in the performing arts center. As I exited the parking lot, a stream of buses started shooting out of a driveway that fed into the road I was using. I had the right of way, but as I inched along, hoping one of the drivers would yield, I could see them looking down on me in my puny Suburban, refusing to give way, sneering at me. Or maybe they were sneering because they were driving buses filled with screaming children. I do that when I have to drive all my kids somewhere. Anyway, there was a slight break in the train of buses so I slipped in and found myself in the middle of 10 buses all jockying for position at the traffic light. The light turned green and I was finally free, or so I thought. The buses in front and behind me ignored the 20 mph through two school districts, forcing me to do the sam

Recently, I spent 2 hours on the phone with AT&T's customer service department. I use the term 'service' lightly, and I would use a more descriptive term but for the chance that children may read this. I am done wasting hours of my life dealing with AT&T as I have switched carriers, but I got to thinking about time, and wasting it, and having a lot of time to waste. In particular, our prison population has a lot of time to waste. What if, instead of stamping out license plates 8 hours a day, prisoners were required to spend that time on the phone with AT&T, listening to horrible music while on hold? We could see a reduction in crime of monumental proportions! What if, instead of picking up trash on the side of the road, minor offenders had to devote some of their time trying to talk to someone on the phone whose primary language is not English and who cannot hear well? They would think twice before shoplifting! What if we punished dead beat dads with hours of ti