Kinder Confusion
I don't know about any other subs out there, but I sometimes fill in as as an office worker... or phone and question anwerer, if you will (Not to belittle any office worker, but as a sub, that's all you do for the entire day). The questions tend come from the students so they are always far more interesting than any ol' phone calls. Also, the nurse's office is near where I'm posted, so I get my fair share of Boo-boo Routing. Here are the highlights: Most of the "sick" kids come through with a need for a band-aid or chapstick or what have you (man those kiddies go through some chapstick! Yo, Stop Licking Your Lips!!). Nothing too major. But then this little green child comes in. Green, I tell you.
"Honey, are you sick?" (You see, as a Southerner, I get to call people Honey, Baby, and Darlin' without irony)
Nods.
"Are you going to throw up?"
Nods.
"Do you want a trash can while you wait for the nurse?"
Shakes head no.
"Hmmm. Wrong answer. Let me rephrase. Here's your trash can to throw up in while you wait for the nurse."
Green child throws up in offered trash can.
"Thank you."
Then there was Miss Chatty. She comes in while the nurse is out for a minute (What is it with these kids? It's like they can sense the second the poor nurse steps out, and pick that moment to start bleeding), and sits in her room to wait. Two seconds later:
"Don't my parents know you?"
"What? Who are your parents?"
"Bob and Sue. You know them."
"I don't think I do. Why don't you go back to wait for the nurse?"
"Ok."
Thirty seconds later:
"What about Steve and Carol? You've gotta know them."
"No, baby, I don't."
"But they knoooow you!"
"Go sit down."
"Ok."
One minute later:
"I know..."
"Look! It's Nurse Lewis!"
While Miss Chatty was distracted, I ran away doing my best arms-akimbo-Jack-Sparrow-running impersonation.
But the
best one, was a poor kindergartener who could barely see over the counter. She comes in, wafting cuteness, and tells me that she doesn't know what bus she's supposed to be riding.
"What bus do you usually ride?"
"The one that takes me home. But I have a note to go to Grandma's today."
"Honey, this says you need to ride the green bus."
See, the itty-bitties can't remember bus numbers, so each bus has a color assigned to it. They're all the regular yellow buses in all actuality, but there are colored cards taped on the doors so the kids can tell them apart. So there are: black, red, green, pink, cerulean, and blackwatch plaid buses. This is why I totally understood the kinder's confusion as she looked at me like I'd lost my mind and wailed:
"BUT THEY'RE ALL
YELLOW!!"
Bus Driver Training
OK. So here are the bus driving details I promised:
I hit curbs.
That's it. Other than the whole determined-to-run-over-every-curb-in-the-county thing, I am a perfect driver. And as far as I remember, having a bus driver who hit curbs was a benefit when I was in school. You get to sit in the back (if you're cool enough, or quick enough to beat out the cool kids) and bounce nearly to the roof when the driver runs over one of those puppies. It was like a fun schoolday bonus. So me hitting curbs isn't actually a shortcoming, is it? It's really a plus. I'm adding joy to the lives of the poor little dearies!
This did make for a bit of a stressful training, though. We had to do quite a lot of driving in a teensy-tiny downtown area. You know the kind: one lane roads that the ever-so-intelligent local government has determined is somehow capable of accomodating 2-way traffic. Add to this scenario a ginormous yellow school bus, lines of cars parallel parked along the side of the road, and a freaked-out curb-hitting newbie driver. Stir. Bake at 350, and let the carnage begin.
Woo Hoo!
Go round and round...
Okay. Ever since that last post I can't get that "Wheels on the Bus" song out of my head. I've been trying to remember some of the lyrics. I think it goes something like this:
The wheels on the bus go round and round,Round and round,Round and round.The wheels on the bus go round and round,All through town.The wipers on the bus go 'swish swish swish'...The mommies on the bus go 'shh shh shh'... (Not sure why there are mommies on the bus, but I distinctly remember that line. No, it's real. I didn't make it up! Shut up!!)
The horn on the bus goes 'beep beep beep'...The driver on the bus goes 'you better sit your butt down in a seat mister before I pull this bus over I don't care what seat just pick one and I saw that gesture so you might as well just walk straight to the office when we get to school!'See, I remembered it.
Anyways, I finished my bus driver training and I will tell you all about it. Soon. After I catch up on my sleep.
The Wheels on the Bus
So last week I started the much-anticipated School Bus Driver training. This was actually just the classroon learnin' part, I don't start driving until next week. That's when the really frightening fun begins!
So at this point all I have is a head full of pretty useless statistics... you know the kind. Stuff that enables you to be the armchair Jeopardy! and Trivial Pursuit master that you are... except bus-related. In other words, I now know the sort of crap that is of absolutely no practical use in the real world. I can tell you the amount of tread bus tires are required to have, at what psi the air compressor governor kicks on and off, and I can recite the parts of the braking system. But what I really need to know is stuff like: How do I keep a kid from throwing up so I don't have to hose down the bus? When do I grow those much-needed eyes in the back of my head? And what do I do if/when I knock down a stop sign?
At least the classes are interesting, and full of fun people. My fellow wannabe-drivers are all teachers, coaches, subs, and custodians. In other words, we all have that special brand of insanity that's needed to deal with the kiddies on a regular basis. In
other other words... the instructor is having a bit of a problem keeping the
peanut gallery in check. Because we're all the peanut gallery. Much of the class goes like this:
Instructor
: "...And this is the slack adjuster."High School Teacher
: "Slack adjuster? I need one of those in my classroom."Football Coach
: "What so you mean? That's your job."HS Teacher
: "Huh?"Coach
: "Dude, you're the slack adjuster!"Instructor
: "Ahem... so if it needs fixing, the mechanic will adjust the nut."Me
: "See, all you have to do is find the main nut and do a little adjusting."There's always one in every class. This poor instructor has about 10.
