Finally -- This is the last year the school will be attending the theatrical performance of A Christmas Carol.
I hate field trips. HATE them. First of all, they're more work to plan than they're worth. Secondly, the amount of paperwork is unbelievable -- this form, that permission slip, this invoice, that medical waiver... Good gawd, whatever happened to "one form covers it all"? Then there's the bus ride with drivers who think going through Weston is the fastest way into Boston from Woburn (trust me -- it's not).
The performance itself of A Christmas Carol is off-limits to me. The pyrotechnics involved in the show give me migraines, so I put on a headset (there are speakers EVERYWHERE, even in the bathroom stalls) and sit in the lobby with puzzles and a book. I drag my classes there every year and have never seen the performance. Oh well. Such is life.
What finally killed the field trip is the price. The theater makes its money off the backs of school children all over this part of the state who pay through their noses for tickets and bus transportation, and my district has finally decided it would be cheaper to show the movie in our new performing arts center. Next year, that's exactly what we will do.
Even worse -- I handed this field trip off to my teammates years ago after planning it all myself for a long, long time, and I thought it was permanently off my plate way back then. Suddenly, this summer, the little buggah turned up on my docket again. So it goes, and thankfully so. Finally. FINALLY. I can have December back.
Until then, this is all I can say about the theater: BAH HUMBUG.
