Tuesday was my first day driving a school bus as a job. It started off alright, safety check, drive to first pick up, load students, and then I went to drop the students off at the school. “No. We can’t take the student in a wheelchair as we don’t have the facilities to accommodate them”, the teacher informed me. This was a temporary location while another school was under construction.
I waited about thirty minutes while various staff came and went and said they were trying to figure out what to do. I finally got the nod to take the student home. No problem. I drove the student back home, completed the drop off and headed back to base. I arrived home at 10:30 am instead of 9:30, which was what I expected.
Becky had an appointment at 10:30 and we weren’t there. I called to let them know we couldn’t make. I was told that there was another opening at 11:10. “We’ll be there”, I said. I ran around putting on Becky’s splint, changing wheelchairs (another story) and packing everything we needed. We arrived at 11:05. Am I good or what!?
Appointment complete. We arrived home ready for lunch. Once we’d finished that, it was time for me to head back to work. So far, so good. I was a little frazzled, but okay. I started driving to pick up the students from school. It started raining, and raining, and raining, and flooding.
It wasn’t quite that deep, but there were several inches of water on the road. Traffic slowed to a crawl. I heard that traffic lights were out in several places across the city. ‘Not the first day’, I thought. I was already nervous about driving a bus and starting work again after five years. I really didn’t need the added stress. I went slowly and made it. Then I had to wait twenty minutes as I was at the back of the bus line. The school seemed to load one bus at a time, so it took a long time to load the ten or twelve buses ahead of me.
I got the student home, and I got me home, an hour late. Then I threw some food together because Becky’s attendant was due. I finally collapsed about 7 pm. What a day! I was really hoping the rest of the week was going to go a little smoother.
