This afternoon’s runs were fun. The driver I rode with actually has double routes, which was kind of nice. Neither one was very big (20 or 30 kids, tops), and each one didn’t take terribly long, either. Both sets of kids were completely fascinated by me being on their bus, and both sets kept asking the driver if I was his son, so we just started playing along. One six-year-old girl refused to believe that I don’t have a girlfriend, and kept trying to pry the name of my non-existent lover out of me.

A few more bits of fun from yesterday afternoon that I forgot to mention… It was only my first day, and already, a bunch of the ladies at work were hitting on me. This one older lady came over and introduced herself. It seemed innocent enough, until she said, “Ooooh… you are a cutie!” As soon as she was gone, all the other girls in the break room said to me: “Stay away from her!

This morning, I got to ride along on a bus for kids with behavioral problems. There are maybe 10 of them total on the whole route, all very spread out. It was a strange experience, to say the least. They were, by far, the best behaved group of kids that I’ve ever seen on a school bus. I got to hear some interesting talk over the radio this morning, including, “I don’t know what it is, but it sure does smell… can someone come take a look at this?

Yay! I took my CDL skills test this morning and pretty much aced it! No more ugly sunrise on my license. Now I have an ugly powder blue bar. The examiner was super-nice, and I only missed points on piddly little things (with the exception of my alley dock and parallel park maneuverability). Tomorrow, I get to start riding around on buses with other drivers, and get paid the full hourly rate, but I don’t actually drive a bus with kids until next week.

Tomorrow, I get to go take my CDL skills test at 8 AM. Today was all practice leading up to that. We did quite a bit of driving around this morning, and I didn’t know it until after, but my instructor was grading me the entire time. Even without knowing that, and driving like I normally do, I scored a 94%. I lost some points at a railroad crossing because I forgot to put the bus back in gear before closing the door, but that doesn’t bother me, since it was an honest mistake.

Yesterday, I got to drive another transit-style bus. This one was a school bus, and actually had air brakes, which made me happy. On top of that, I think that it rode much nicer, so I was definitely a lot happier when driving it. On top of that, I learned that as soon as I pass my CDL skills test, I get to start driving kids around. That means that, if all goes to plan, I will start driving kids on Wednesday.

Today’s training was fun, but uneventful. I found out that my CDL test got moved up to the 30th, so I only have one week left now. Yay! We did some practice CDL pre-trips today, and I forgot a ton of stuff on mine, but it was also the first time I’ve done one without being guided, so I’m not too disappointed. Plus, I completely rocked out on the maneuverability course.

Today was another good, fun day. Right away, we drove over to the bus lot and traded our usual training bus for one of the transit coaches. We somehow managed to pick a bus from the lot with the dirtiest windows in the world and mirrors that were stuck. We spent about 5 minutes washing the windows on the outside before we realized that it was the inside that was truly dirty.