The Meanest bus Driver On The Planet

School starts in four days and I have to worry about a lot of stuff for my kids. Will Sandor be alright in the new middle school building.  Will Lexie keep her grade point above a 3.5, will she get all her college stuff filled out in time, will Sandor take school seriously or develop a toxic case of  “boy disease “, will I get a new cowbell for this year’s football season? (the clanker fell out of me last year).

Thankfully there’s one thing I don’t have to worry about. Our school bus. For more than fifteen years my kids have had the same bus driver. Coach R. He’s a monster, he’s strict/mean/harsh/scary. And  he’s the best bust driver on the planet. The man doesn’t take &*%# from anybody and rules his school bus like Russian Prime Minister. It’s a beautiful thing.

This summer Sandor and Sam went to day camp. Every morning I waiting in the parking lot for the big yellow school bus to arrive and take them to a day filled with ponies, zip lines, catfish, canoes and bible verses. They loved camp but HATED the bus ride. When I asked them why Sandor said, “The bus driver is terrible, she doesn’t care about anything! So every body screams the whole time, they all throw stuff like pencils, kick the back of the seats and fall out into the isle when we go around a corner and she doesn’t say anything, ever!”

Sam was nodding his blonde head in agreement, “She doesn’t care what we do, Miss Diana. It’s like she’s deaf or something.”

They were two indigent little boys, frustrated by the obvious lack of leadership and adult supervision.

(Sidebar: Adults…most kids want order and supervision. They count on us, the adults in their lives, to make rules and set limits. If you are a lame ass grown up who lets kids get away with anything because you want to be the “cool parent” you are an idiot and you are letting your kids down. Now, some body please help me off this soapbox).

Last year I had to sit in a court room and watch a video from a local school bus. For ten minutes a girl was picked on, smacked, tormented, yelled at and bullied. Kids were standing up, yelling and obnoxious. The bus driver didn’t do a damn thing for twelve minutes.  Her defense? “I didn’t’ want to mess up my schedule.”

That kind of stuff does not happen on Coach R’s bus. Little kids sit up front and are safe, nobody screams or nobody goes home. If he suspects there’s something wrong at a house or nobody is home, he keeps the little kids on the bus with him. there is law and order every day on Coach R’s bus and Everybody knows who the Sheriff is and they know he genuinely cares about them.

I have put my kids on the same bus for fifteen years knowing they would be safe and protected.

I thank the Lord for giving my family the meanest bus driver ever. He’s wonderful