Stealing Time from Children

Grad Bash was a blast, but there was a horde of unforgivable sinners who made the night feel like a fall from grace: the chaperones.
We’ll get to them in a moment.
After a chatty, celebratory bus ride to Orlando for Grad Bash Friday, interspersed with giggles from the passengers watching Mean Girls on the dropdown ceiling screens, Atlantic Coast students were pumped and ready to have the night of their lives.
Once the bus doors swung open, a student stampede herded directly to Hagrid’s Magical Creature’s Motor Bike Adventure and was alerted the wait time was two hours. Not bad for a thrill ride rocketing past the many magical creatures from Harry Potter at more than 50 m.p.h.
After inching forward through the zig-zagging line, including an inside portion that resembled cave tunnels, the humidity and claustrophobia felt like a sledgehammer when the line halted to a standstill.
A pack of a few dozen heathen archfiends – a.k.a. adult chaperones, all of whom looked like they had just stepped out of a photoshoot – flooded the Express-Pass line and skipped past their students straggling forward. A few flashed self-righteous smirks as they bellowed “ha-ha’s” at their sad, sweaty students, many of whom appeared to be an inch away from collapsing from heat-induced panic attacks.
One or two did indeed pass out and needed medical attention, witnesses said.
It was ironic that these chaperones – these “adults” invited to safeguard children – looked so pristine when the students they were there to protect looked like a demon flock of suffering. Not one chaperone had a single bead of sweat on his or her brow.
The joke got worse. Due to the mob of chaperones, the two-hour wait extended to three and a half hours, as students had to sacrifice their time to let these princes and princesses of darkness get their free ride.
In that moment, the long-anticipated Grad Bash had become a trip to the ninth circle of hell.
Here’s the takeaway future chaperones should consider so they won’t have to atone for their Express-Pass sins: Grad Bash is for the kids, not for the chaperones’ enjoyment. The chaperone is there to help, to keep order, and console the student who got motion sickness and ended up vomiting four times after Hagrid’s joyride sloshed his stomach into knots.
Or maybe they can kick in a few bucks to knock down the $250 entry fee that we pay for their enjoyment. Or at least buy us a Butter Beer.