The Wheels On The Bus

For anyone who loved junior high and high school and wishes to relive it through their children and outdated styles, this blog is not for you. It's for the rest of us who see a school bus full of teenagers and revert back to a time when a razor blade to the wrist seemed like a vacation next to showing up for first period. Riding the bus was the beginning and end to every day of my adolescent life from 7th grade to 11th grade and a few times after when I wasn't allowed to drive my POS car. I despised the bus like no one else. It was a torture chamber that I couldn't get out of. Full of assholes, stinky benches and apparently deaf drivers that couldn't give two shits if you were getting pummeled, undressed, dry humped or savagely beaten on your jaunt to The Happiest Place On Earth.
I relived my horror of buses while accompanying my son on his kindergarten field trip this week. While I agree there was much less of me getting attacked, I couldn't help but feel like all the work I had done to gain self esteem and self respect just flew out the half opened window. I was once again the ugliest, pig nosiest, fat kid walking down that aisle, I had no concept of where I could hide or even sit. Everyone looked prettier than me, even the 70 year old bus driver and when the kid next to me asked my name....I assumed it was so he could yell it to everyone else on the bus before they all tried to flip my bra and give me a wedgie. He was 6, so it turned out he really just wanted to know my name. The smell and the heat were more than my happy mantras could stand. I tried everything but halfway home I wished I had a concealed weapons permit so I could stage a Speed reenactment and take the fucking bus on a whirlwind trip through the Starbucks drive thru. I could tell I wasn't the only one who needed a fix.
Here is my other concern about buses. Where the fuck are the seat belts? I am told that my kids need to have a car seat/booster seat until age 16 but they are safe as a puppy to ride in a completely unsecured fart filled bench seat with no restraint? It's the OCD mothers worst nightmare. Now I take more of a "I survived and so will you" approach with my kids so there are times when we drive a few blocks with no seat belts. Yeah, I know...child abuse. But these buses are going 65 mph for long jaunts while your kids bounce around and beat the living hell out of their classmates. It's time to retire the school bus and reinvent something that is not only safe but caters to the nerdy/fat/outcast kids' well being. We sent monkeys into space and invented the Internet, I think we can figure this one out.