Life Lessons from the School Bus

This is what you do: put somebody in a 40 ft-long, 33,000 lb steel box for several hours a day. Then, add your choice of a few dozen kids hyped up on candy after a party, a few drunken sorority girls, crying toddlers, fog, darkness, and swarming ants attracted to a forbidden pop-tart. Do this and what you will have either a recipe for disaster, or an average day on a school bus (except for the drunken sorority girls - that was not normal!). Now, to the best of my recollection, I've met only one adult who said, "I always wanted to be a school bus driver." Most, like me, wound up taking the job out of desperation, because our spouses told us to, or because we were attracted to the crazy hours and summers off without pay. I'm convinced only a select few wake up one morning and exclaim, "Hey! I want to drive a bus! It'll be fun!" No, in my opinion, a sovereign God sets in motion a variety of calamitous circumstances to place drivers behind the wheels of school buses in order to teach us about life. The rest become transportation managers and dispatchers. Therefore, after nearly fifteen years behind the wheel, I've compiled a collection of mostly-true anecdotes, a few serious observations, and a wealth of wisdom you'd be hard-pressed to find anywhere else, unless you've driven a school bus. However, don't feel you have to drive a bus, or even have a driver's license, to enjoy this book. Even if you've been banned from the road, the following stories will give you a license to laugh.