Today I finally got to drive the bus with kids on it. It was very funny picking them up at school. Their regular driver was sitting in the passenger seat, so they didn’t see her, and several just walked right past the bus. It probably doesn’t help that we weren’t in their regular bus, but it was still funny. One of the school monitors started yelling at some 6-year-old girl who walked past the bus, telling her to get back to her bus. Maybe I’m just lenient, but I really don’t think the girl deserved to be yelled at because she walked past a strange bus with a strange driver that just happened to be her bus. Oh well.

The driver kept forgetting that I don’t know the route, too, and we would end up driving past roads we needed to turn down. At one point, I got to turn the bus around in some tiny parking lot for a scenic overlook. There were three or four teenagers sitting in a car smoking cigarettes, and possibly pot, thinking they were all cool and watching me get the bus turned around. I wanted to just back over their car, but since there were kids on board the bus, I resisted. One thing that did make me feel much happier, though, was when the driver complimented me on both my driving and my mirror usage. I was kind of afraid that I might not drive well out of nervousness with kids on board, but I think I did just fine.

I did, however, have a completely bone-headed moment at one of the schools. We were there early, and got out to go use the restroom. I gave the service door a little shove behind me to close it to keep too much wind from blowing through and cooling off the bus. Evidently, I shoved it too hard, because the door slammed closed and latched behind us. So I had the honor of climbing back onto the bus through the emergency door to open the service door back up. Silly me.

Tomorrow morning, I am going out on the same run again. Hopefully I’ll manage to remember some of the streets and whatnot. I don’t think it should be a problem.