The day has arrived!

Well, today is the 2nd best day of the year for someone under 18--The Last Day of School. It is, of course, 2nd after Christmas. And the only reason it's second, I believe, is because you don't get presents. Birthdays rank a close third, but when you watch kids, it's easy to tell which ranks over which.

Here is a list of things that won't be happening in my car in the mornings now:

1. No on will yell "Shotgun!" as we're going out the car. (Actually, they've gotten pretty good about this competition. They worked out a system where a certain person would sit shotgun on certain days of the week and everyone complied. I didn't have to lift a finger.)

2. Solicitation about what CD we should listen to---or whether it should be the iPod.

3. Complaints about having to wear a seat belt.

4. Talk about car pool girl's object of affection.

5. Talk between car pool boy and Robo about who's got what better than who.

6. Talk about what went on in the lunch room yesterday.

7. Talk about what's cool lately.

8. Pleas to be dropped off closer to the building.

9. This song. (iTunes linked)

10. The "Call It" car game. This is the game where the first person to spot a cool car can "call it" which means that that is "their" car and no one else can call it. Little Bear likes this game too, except he "calls" every car he sees announcing "Call It Car!"

11. And of course---the Slug Bug game. You know, the game where you call out "Slug Bug" and punch the nearest person every time you spot a VW Beetle. But we curtailed the slugging part right away---so this became another game of "calling it".

It's been quite interesting because there has been an evolution of this game and it's gotten fairly sophisticated compared to it's original form. They've added a couple of other distinctive cars to the mix---we Cruisers the PT Punch (for PT Cruisers) and Jeeper Beepers (for Jeeps). I drew the line there because we were getting into Copper Boppers for police cars, and Van Bams for Mini vans and it would just become constant screaming.

They also went a step further because there could be multiple cars of the same model that different people were getting, so the rule was made that you have to call out the color of the one you see. They took it a step further for a short period by requiring that instead of the color of the car, you think of something that is that same color and have to call that out---so for red you would say "Slug Bug Tomato!" I was told that with those rules Leemur once called out "Jeeper Beeper Who Turned Out The Lights" for a black Jeep.

You are also not allowed to call cars that are frequently parked in certain places. Like we drive by the local Mall to school and there is always a red beetle parked in that lot that someone who works at one of the stores there must drive. No one can call out that car.

12. So I also won't be hearing disputes about who violated what Slug Bug rule with the last call out.

13. I won't hear the strutting "who's your daddy" smack talk from the person who happens to be the morning's Slug Bug champ (which is typically Robo for those keeping score. It got so he would call out and just laugh because he was schooling them so bad).

14. I also won't hear, "Bye Dad, Love you. See you tonight".

Dang. My mornings are going to be so boring now.