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

What I saw...

Minding my own business this morning and picking up the High School kids. I'm driving thru this neighborhood and look over to see two people rolling a body out of the house on a stretcher with a blanket over the body. They were loading the body into a hearse.

Everything else has been pretty normal. Still hot as hell out there in the afternoons. The mornings aren't so bad, but the afternoons.....wow, scorching.
Bus 13 Clear

The Incident

My wife reminded me of another story from last year...

A fellow driver had switched routes in order to get more hours in a work day. The route she took would mean that she would become a multi-route driver. Basically a fill in driver that drives the routes of drivers who call in sick or are on vacation. We used to drive the same elementary and middle school routes until she switched over to the multiroute routes. The point is I hadn't talked to her in a couple of weeks because we were always in different parts of the district.

I ran into her outside in the parking lot and asked her how she liked her new position.
She told me it was great except for that incident the other day. Not knowing what the "incident" was I just kind of skipped over that comment without thinking about it. We talked about the things she liked and disliked about the new position as a multiroute driver. She told me again that she thought she was going to really like it as long as she didn't have another incident like the one the other day.

Now since this was her second time mentioning "the incident" a light bulb went off in my head that made me think either she wanted to tell me about "the incident" or she assumed I already knew about it.

Ladies and Gentlemen I present "The Incident"
Now curious about the incident I asked what she was talking about....
She proceeded to tell me that as she was pulling up to a bus stop the other morning that there seemed to be a commotion.(sp?)
She said that one young man who was a middle schooler was chasing around the other kids. The other kids were all laughing and screaming as she pulled up to the stop. The boy chasing everyone jumped to the front of the line, cutting in front of everyone. As the bus driver opened the door the boy turned sideways, wearing sweatpants, and pointed to his "crank" and said "hey bus driver, check this out!"
Horrified, she didn't really know what to say so she told him to sit down and be quiet. The boy then said, "It won't go down either!"

All the way to school, about a 15 minute ride, everyone was screaming and hollering as this boy continued to show off his manhood thru his sweatpants.
She got on the two way radio and asked a principal to meet her out front when she arrived.
When she arrived at the school 15 minutes later the principal came to the bus and asked her what the problem was. Still not knowing what to say she called the boy up to the front of the bus for the principal to see for himself.
The principal didn't say another word, told the boy to follow him and then went inside.

The next day the principal informed the driver that the boy had gotten into his dad's Viagra just to "see what would happen"

I was laughing as the driver told this story, sadly she still looked horrified. I have no idea what I would have done in that situation. What could you do? What could you say? "Hey You're going to have to put that in your backpack while we ride to school."

Maybe she should have waited until he was getting on the bus and closed the door on his "junk"

Another true story, I couldn't make this stuff up.....

Bus 13 Clear

Parent Quote:

I had a parent tell me today as his son got on the bus.
"Be careful with him cuz he don't speak no good english much"

I still have no idea what that means or what I'm supposed to do with that information.
Am I supposed to drive differently? Am I supposed to help him on and off the bus?
Why should I have to change my routine because your son "don't speak no good english?"
Stuff found on the bus today: 1 Blue Pen and a bottle of half drank Ozarka water.
Bus 13 clear

First Day of School

Well the first day of school has come and gone....Wow what a mess.
The elementary kids are the most fun. Everyone is dressed in new clothes, and the parents look more excited than the kids do. Parents were taking pictures as their kid got on the bus. They would actually pose on the steps of the bus so their parents could snap the picture. Of course this made me late for every other stop. I didn't really care though and I think the school expects this sort of thing on the first day. I believe the school builds in a buffer the first day because they know this sort of picture taking stuff is going to happen.

The middle school kids are middle school kids. They are a strange breed. We used to call them Jr. High students. Somewhere that got changed to middle school students. I think it fits better actually because the seem to be stuck in the middle. Stuck somewhere between elementary and high school. Their attitudes, looks, voices, etc. are all somewhere between a little kid and a young adult. Middle schoolers are also the worst behaved. Ask any driver, they will agree 99.9% of the time.

High School kids are the best. They seem to have an attitude that says, "If I can just get thru this day it brings me one step closer to graduating and getting the hell out of here."

The funny thing about the high school kids I picked up today was that some of them were middle schoolers last year but with a different attitude already today. It was like they stepped on the bus this morning and suddenly realized they weren't the top dog anymore. Here was a bus full of kids who were all older than them. They are now the low man/woman on the totem pole. Some looked humbled, some looked like deer in headlights. I was happy to see some of them again, others not so much and others that I almost didn't recognize at all.

On a side note...An elementary students mom stopped me this morning and handed me a bottled water to give to "Chad" because he forgot it. This crazy mom assumed I knew who "Chad" was. I called his name out 3 times, no one ever answered. Once I dropped the elementary kids off I was dying of thirst and boy was I glad no one claimed it.
I bet her little angel doesn't forget his water tomorrow.

Stuff found on the bus today:
A Pencil
A Green/White Water Bottle
A 30gb iPod w/Video

Bus 13 clear

Fast Forward....

This will be the official blog for bus 13, the Frog. I really don't like blogs. I've never really understood what the point is. Most of them are a bunch of worthless babble. I'm sure this one will be no different. However, I wanted to chronicle a full school year and keep a "journal" of all the wild, goofy and crazy stories that happen on a school bus.

Let me try and catch you up from last year.....

I started driving a bus last year against my better judgement. What I mean is, who in their right mind would do such a thing? Who would give me a license to drive an eighty thousand dollar vehicle is a better question.

Seventy Two (Yes 72) screaming elementary kids, jacked up on sugar, piss in their pants in a hundred degree weather on an un-airconditioned bus. Sounds fun right? Why would you buy a bus in Texas WITHOUT A/C?
Do the Eskimos in Alaska ride to school in an unheated bus? I seriously doubt it, but anyway.

Tales from last year:
My first day driving by myself, without a trainer I'm cruising down the road minding my own business. I've got a bus full of high school kids. I start to smell something funny and recognize the smell as weed, or pot, chronic, the cheeba, hippie lettuce, dope, mary jane, ganja, or giggle grass. Thinking to myself I contemplate ignoring it or not. I know ignoring it isn't the right thing to do but what if I'm wrong and look like a fool. Remember this is my first day driving by myself.

I decided to ask some of the kids sitting up front if they smelt anything. I leaned back a little and said "Hey do you guys smell anything?" One of the kids immediataly yells out, "Yeah, it smells like someone is smoking weed!"
Well so much for the option of ignoring the smell. If I ignore it now and the smeller tells his teachers that the bus driver ignored the smell I'll surely be in trouble. So I decided to do what I was trained to do and it went something like this....

"Bus 13 to east"
"This is east go ahead"
"Be advised I have a student smoking the marijuana on the bus this morning"
I have no idea why I said "the" before marijuana, guess I was trying to sound professional.
"10-4 We copy, we'll have a school official standing by, what's your e.t.a?"
"I'll be at the school in 5 minutes"

I guess the student didn't think that the old bus driver would know what a blunt smells like.

I arrived at the school to find the Asst. Principal waiting on our bus to arrive. I got off the bus and told her what happened but that I didn't actually know who was burning the reefer.
She (the asst. principal) entered the bus and of course no one confessed to torking on a fatty.
She said that since no one was willing to confess she would have to give everyone the "sniff test"
She proceeded to sniff each student until she narrowed it down to about six. Everyone else was allowed off the bus as per the asst. principal. The last six students on the bus were re-sniffed until she narrowed it down to who she thought it was.
The other 5 students were allowed off the bus and homeboy was escorted off the bus by the principal. He looked scared and smoked out all at the same time.
I never saw him again for the rest of the year.

The moral of the story is this...Don't do something on my bus that could get ME in trouble.

I have some other stories but I'm tired of writing. I'll post more later.
For Now, Here's a video I find funny...


Bus 13 Clear