the sixty fifth Story

My art teacher, Ms. Joyce Hannah, used to take us all into the city occasionally. She'd hire a bus (a  nice one, with bathrooms!) and we'd get our permission slips signed, and most of the time, she'd just have the bus drop us off at the corner of Houston and Broadway streets, with the only rules being the time we were to meet the bus and that we had to eat something interesting for lunch. We'd go to galleries, and my favorite toy store, and eat empanadas and think we were hot shit. One of these times, though, there was a particular exhibit she wanted us to see at the Met. She had the bus drop us off in the middle of central park. As anyone local to NYC knows, the Met is free if you want it to be, but there is a suggested donation of something very high. If you show up as a school group, they give you a discount, but take away the option of not paying. So, she divided us up into groups, and handed each of us a dime to give them, to at least pay for our little tags. And we all met up at the exhibit, thrilled that our teacher had gamed the system.