Bus Brings Out The Worst - Literally

I love my car. I hope it loves me too, because if it ever breaks down during the school year I will have to ride the bus.

If you’ve ever ridden a school bus, you know what I’m talking about.

Last year, when I moved from Spokane to Athol, Idaho, I began riding the bus, and hated it from the very first day. Two hours each day on a bus packed full of high school and junior high kids is enough to drive anyone crazy.

Many students from my school ride the bus because they have to. Most live too far away to walk or cannot drive for one reason or another. My parents made me ride because it “made sense.” (“Why drive when you can ride the school bus for free?”)

Uh huh.

The only time I was allowed to drive to school was when I had to go to work afterward or when I had track practice. I would much rather drive myself and be at school in 30 minutes (instead of the hour it takes on the bus) than be crowded onto a bus full of juvenile delinquents and sweat-drenched junior high students, but my parents didn’t know how bad the bus really was.

It was like a prison sentence.

The only people who had fun on the bus were the ones who made the ride miserable for everyone else. These people were amused easily, whether their activity for the day included snorting Pixy Stix, inhaling cheap perfume, launching saliva-dripping wads of paper through the air or making rude noises with their armpits.

Two or three morons always sat in the very back of the bus and put on a Beavis and Butt-head sort of show. Not too many people found these displays of adolescent stupidity amusing, but a few fellow butt-heads seemed to think they were extremely funny. The quieter, more subdued students pass their time listening to headphones, ignoring the objects flying past their heads.

After observing the patrons of the Big Yellow Taxi for an extended period, I realized that each rider fit a certain category. So far, I have explained the Butt-heads and the Butt-head Audience.

The bus is also habitat to the Psychotic Crowd, the Bookworm Crowd and the Junior Nazis of America Crowd. Those groups need no explanation.

The bus really wouldn’t have been so bad if the kids riding it just had a little bit of manners and if the bus driver would have spent less time looking at himself in the mirror and more time doing his job.

One girl told me that she thought some kids were smoking pot in the back of the bus. “What is that smell?” asked the bus driver. After somebody said “Chap Stick,” he went back to watching himself in the mirror.

The busing system has really gone out of control. The bus drivers can’t control students who weren’t raised to show respect and common sense. Not only is this a bad deal for the drivers, but it’s also a bummer for the decent teens who have no choice but to ride the bus to school.

So this has me thinking, what crowd does the bus driver belong to? My guess is the Psychotic Crowd. Anyone who would drive a bus full of jerks every day has got to be crazy.

Me, I’m going to enjoy a nice quiet ride to school in my a car this year - and pray all the way that it never breaks down.