Back to the grind....

I know I'm just tired and irriatated. After not driving the Yella Dawg, aka 252, for nine days straight will do that. 5:30 came early, it seemed extra early today though. Going to work in the dark and getting home when it's almost dark blows. It's days like today when I wonder if I'm really cut out for this job.
It's fun and all but 12 hour days get old quick.
I'd miss the kids if I ever quit. Most of them are great. It's the rotten ones that make you scratch your head and say "Where are we at in Society?"
Everything was going great this morning....Until a high schooler steps in dog crap and tracks it in the bus. The heater was on full blast which basically cooks the dog poop. It heats it up till it's really funky.

If I hadn't known better I would have bet that a dog snuck on the bus and proceeded to take a big freakin' dump right in front of the heater.
Not seeing a dog on the bus I figured someone must have stepped in Rover's lincoln log without knowing...I hope it wasn't on purpose.
So after I drop the kids off at the high school I proceed to access the damage.
Wow, worse than I thought. Again, where are we at in society? Why would a kid take three sheets of notebook paper, wipe their shoes and then leave the paper on the seat. You already got doo doo on your shoes, why not throw the paper in the trash? Are you kidding me?
So anyway, the YellaDawg, 252 needed a good cleaning. I swept and mopped the bus from front to back. That pretty much killed my back. Afterwards I headed over to the dollar store and bought a bunch of those smelly coconut air freshners and strung them around the inside of the bus like Christmas lights.
Later in the afternoon when I picked the kids up at the HS they complained about the coconut smell....Are u kidding me?
Seriously, where are we at in society?
Reminds me of another one of my favorite videos.

A month later...

Wow a month since I last posted? I guess there really hasn't been much to post about 252. 252 is alot tamer than 13. ALOT! I can only think of one incident and it happened last week.
It went a little something like this....

My first HS stop in the morning has about 15 kids that get on. My 2nd stop has about 10 kids. So that's ~25 kids by the second stop. I was about to close the door at the 2nd stop when I saw someone out of my peripheral vision. I turned to see someone at the door who didn't look like a student. The next two minutes went something like this....Oh and I write it the way I heard it, if that offends you move on now....
"Iz dis da high skul bus?"
"Yes Ma'am it is"
"Iz my son up on here?"
"I'm not sure who your son is"
At this point she starts walking up the stairs and I say to her "Ma'am you can't come onto the bus"
She advises me again that she is looking for her son.....
"I b looking for my son"
She now starts yelling to the back of the bus for her son. No answer She tries again by yelling his name louder this time.....no answer. So I say to the Mom,
"I don't think he's on here and we really need to go"
"Oh he'z on here I just saw him get up on here"
So I yell out his name to see if I get a response.
I see a head pop over one of the backseats....and so does Mom!
Mom yells, "Boy get yo azz up here"
As her son is walking to the front I'm thinking to myself this is gonna be good
Mom says "Boy I dun told you not to b wearin dat chain to skool! Now take it off"
The whole bus is silent as we watch in amazement this mom humiliating her son in front of his peers.
"but Mom"
"Don't but Mom me son!"
Turns out he's wearing a gold chain to school that his mom already told him not to wear.
"Boy u know that chain b broke, and if u were to loze it I'd whoop dat azz!"
Mom know proceeds to take the gold chain off of her son as he stands there embarrsed.
"Baby I know u b embarrsed cuz momma dun come up on dis bus but you know u cant b wearing dis chain to skool son"
Mom now has the chain off and shows it to me and says "Look wouldn't u b mad if yo kid lost a chain like dis?"
Still in shock all I could say was "Yes Ma'am".....What I should have said was "I don't know, is it real cuz it sure looks fake from here!"

Time Flys...

I didn't realize it had been so long since I posted anything. So let's get 'cha caught up on the happenings of bus 13 errrrr......252 I mean. Yeah, I got an aircoditioned bus. It was weird how it all went down too. I had signed up for an open route that became available. I knew it has a/c on it so of course I wanted it. I didn't think there was much chance at it because open routes go by senority and there were about 10 names on this route where people had signed up.

How it went down....

I had a teacher call in on me because she said I called one of the elementary students "a drunk"

The teacher emailed the transportation director and I had to explain myself.

I told him that I hadn't really called the student, "a drunk" and instead I had asked the student if he had been drinking. Come on, the kid was all of 3 feet tall and carrying a backpack that probably weighed more than he did. As he was climbling up the steps he stumbled a little and I said "Hey, have you been drinking in school today?" The kid laughed, I laughed and that was it, or so I thought. The teacher outside my bus was "shocked and horrified" <--- her words. I think we are raising a generation of pansy's. Someday we are going to regret that we didn't joke around with kids, that we didn't let them ride in the back of a pick up truck, and that everytime they got on a bicycle they had to put a helmet on their dome. This will be the "Everyone Wins" generation. I'm talking about the little league organizations that hand out a trophy to every kid who for participating during the season no matter how horrible that kid was. If you're kid strikes out every time he goes up to bat and couldn't catch a cold, much less a baseball, he doesn't deserve a trophy. Period. Wow, way off track now....Anyway.....So I'm driving home that afternoon after having to explain myself and I get a phone call from transportation and the lady who does the routes told me I had gotten the route. Halleluiah. The next day I started my new route on 252...with cold a/c



Cold A/C that only last 3 days....Are you kidding me? You see the buses have three a/c units. One in the back that is independent. One in the middle and one in front that work together on the same switch. Of course the a/c in the front is the one that crapped out on me. It still blows air, just not cold air, and sometimes it cool, but not cold, and other times, well it's just warm air.

The route is alot better though. It's easier. There's some down time between runs, and it's a lot newer and nicer bus.

Funny things that have happend on 252 so far....

My second day driving 252 as the HS students are unloading these two girls "axed" me.

Is you our new bus driva?

I responded "Yes I am"

"Oh Ok, My name be Shaniqua"

The look on my face must have said, You got to be kidding me because her friend said.....

"Naw fo real doh dat b her real name"

I didn't know what to say....except Have a good day...



I also learned last year that having a portable radio in your bus isn't the way to go. Batteries alone will bankrupt you. So I installed a car stereo in my bus last year, this year and have now transferred that stereo over from 13 to 252 this year. So after about two weeks of having the stereo in 252, Shaniqua from above noticed it finally. I guess she thought I had been up front the past two weeks singing or something. Anyway...As she's getting off the bus she see's the stereo and tells me....

"Oh shoot, I didn't know dat u b havin' a radio up in here"

That reminds me of a video that I find hilarious...enjoy!
Bus 252 clear....

Scoreboard

Remember homeboy from last week who said he ain't never gonna run to the bus???
He wasn't lying....Guess who was walking to the bus stop this morning and showed no interest in running?....Take a guess who got left behind?

Who let the Goats Out?!?

Two things....
When I made it to a normal bus stop this morning one student got on like she should.
Another student who was a real pain in the ass last year was walking. For some reason something came over me and I decided to wait for mr. slow poke to get on the bus. I don't know what came over me, I normally wouldn't wait like this. What the heck was I thinking???
So homeboy finally makes it to the bus door and as he's walking up the steps I say to him, "You need to run next time"
Homeslice mouths off to me and laughs right at me and says, "I ain't never gonna run to the bus."
I took this as a challenge to see how many times I can leave him starting tomorrow till the end of the year.
That's what I get for waiting on him....stay tuned and see if he gets left by the end of the week.

I think this is funny and I don't know why. Animals in places they shouldn't be makes me laugh. If someone lets a stray dog into the mall and you see that dog walking around inside Spencers gifts or Orange Julius that is hilarious to me...Again, I don't know why.
So anyway, yesterday I'm cruising down the highway. It's only 6:30 in the morning so it's still dark. Hardly any traffic on the road I'm driving down. Just a calm, quiet morning. All of a sudden I hear on the radio this conversation which from reading the above you should know I thought was freakin' funny for some reason...
"Bus twenny nine to west"
"This is west go ahead"
"Thays a billie goat runnin' downs the road ova here where I be"

Play cricket sound in your head for about 10 seconds because the radio was silent. I think dispatch was either laughing or trying to figure out what to do or both.

"Is the goat on the side of the road or what's he doing?"
"Naw, he be runnin' down the road, he might b one uv dem ffa goats and got loose, u might wants to cawl da po-lice"
By now I'm rolling and already have the mic in my hand so that I can clown a little.
"Ok we'll call the police and let them know"
I get on the mic and do my best impression of a goat.
Without missing a beat someone else picks up their mic and says "Sounds like that goat already got on somebodys elses bus!'
So there you have it, I thought it was funny, but maybe you had to be there.
Bus 13 Clear

Take it to the bank folks...

Let me give some of you parents some shocking news. Your kids act up when you are not around.
Yes! It is true..
So when I tell you that your kid was standing up on the bus while the bus was moving try not to act like you just saw an alien.

To the High School kids that ride my bus. This is the 4th week of school. You should by now know what time I arrive in the morning. From now on I will leave you, even if I see you running for the bus. I love doing that! I might even make eye contact and wave bye. If the other students see you running for the bus I will ask them to wave also. To the student that I saw this morning, yes I saw you running and I also saw you again at an unauthorized stop trying to wave me down. Don't worry I saw you, but we aren't allowed to make unauthorized stops because of liablitly reasons. I love this rule because it gives me an out for not stopping and instead driving on by and smiling. :-)

Johnny Law

One thing that amazes me, or shocks me I suppose is the presence of police at schools these days.
I tried to remember at least one time when I remember cops being at school when I was growing up. The only time I can remember is in kindergarten when my Dad came to talk to us. That's it.
Everyday on campus I see cops, not rent-a-cops but real cops carrying guns. I understand why they are there, but where are we at in society that we need the fuzz at middle school and high schools every day?
Leaving the High School today I counted 4 cop cars in different locations just monitoring everything that was going on. More of a "just in case" I suppose.
I wonder if we will ever see cops at the elementary schools. I would imagine in some parts of the country, ie. California, they are already there.
Bus 13 Clear