More from the bus stop

Interesting things happen at the bus stop. And you sometimes learn a lot more than you’d care to about the lives of strangers.

I’ve heard about people’s operations and drug deals and stolen property and any number of odd – by my estimation – political, religious, or business philosophies. But most of the oddities that assail me I hear at the block-long stop in Seattle where I wait with scores of other riders for our various coaches. You expect that sort of diversity in the downtown of a big city.

Only rarely am I exposed to surprising situations at the little stop around the corner from our house. Occasionally I have to deal with the denizens from the illegal homeless shelter at the Lutheran church. But generally, we’re a pretty boring group at the corner of 146^th and Eastgate Way.

One fairly reliable source of entertainment is provided by the high school students who catch the 241 three minutes before my 210 appears on the scene. They clearly don’t consider an old Fudd like me to be, you know, part of their world and they will talk about just about anything within my earshot. I don’t matter in their world.

Accordingly, I get to hear all the best gossip. I know who asked Alex to Homecoming and who is the biggest $)&*^!! on the football team. I mean, I don’t know the people but I know the names because the kids at the bus stop are not even a little bit shy about naming names.

So I wasn’t all that shocked when one of the group of girls who meet at the stop each morning proclaimed Mr. (teacher’s name deleted) as the biggest (women’s hygiene product)-bag in the school. What did take me aback was her announcement to her friends with neither chagrin nor shame that Mr. XXXXXX-bag had inadvertently left his classroom unlocked and she had found the questions and answers for the term final on his desk. She then allowed as how she had emailed a copy to several of her friends in the class.

Now, I’m not so naïve that I don’t know cheating is rampant in many of our schools. And from its reputation, I’m especially not surprised to learn of cheating at this particular school.

What really knocked me back was how casually the girl announced her cheating and that the other girls accepted it as a boon to studentdom. And I couldn’t believe how willing they were to talk openly about it in front of me.

Please, someone tell me that this is unusual. That these were particularly clueless girls and not representative of how low academic honesty – hell, just honesty – rates on the modern student’s mind.

Please tell me I’m not just a clueless Fudd.