Friday the thirteenth

glide your mouse over the pictures for more text

So, I was leaving the bus yard yesterday and three people wished me a good weekend.

"WTF" I says to myself – it’s Thursday.  Isn’t it??  Did I miss a day?!  WTF?

So, I was pretty weirded out by that, and I got back outa my van and grabbed one of the drivers walking to her car and said, politely but translated here as "WTF?" – explaining why I said that (and no, I didn’t really say what the fuck – this Cat is very polite in the real world, but I was thinking it, fer sure.

It turns out that today is a "non-contract day".  No school, so no bus driving to be done. Turns out they hadn’t given me schedule yet… or forgot to….

(imagine a heartfelt "yahoo!" here please)

I like the bus driving job, but I do like sleep too, and I haven’t quite got my schedule adjusted yet for that – haven’t gotten more than four hours straight of sleep all week, except Wednesday night, which I have off the paper routes.

I got to come home from the paper routes this morning, late, since it’s Friday and I had to give the route manager at the plant a ride home last night.  (a one time deal – his car got stolen)

(ok, this morning, but hey, it’s dark out, it’s night, right?)

I was beat by the end of my run this morning, cuz I knew I didn’t have to drive the bus today, so I crashed for a few hours (yay!) this morning, then got up and…

Drove my bus routes in my own van.

 

 

I had spent the paper routes trying to like, visualize my bus routes and coming up blank on some of it, so I figured, well, let’s go to the barn, get the route sheets, or copies thereof, and run my bus routes again, just to firm up my memory.

Not that I’m like, super dedicated or whatever, but I do wanna appear competant, even if I’m not so much really.

(my bus:)

And, I’ll tell ya, I made a wrong turn on my afternoon run yesterday and got lost in the depths of southeast Portland, going to my first stop, an elementary school. 

You can’t just whip into a driveway and turn around with one of these things.  I was way off course, and was late to pick up my first batch of kids, elementary school kids.  The staff at that school was like, "well, it happens to new guys, no problem" so no hard times there, but after I got most of the kids dropped off (only three drops on that route) and was on my way to the last drop point, there were seven kids on the bus, and there’s only supposed to be six. 

Turned out this little asian girl had forgotten what stop to get off at, so I had to run that part of the route again, and guess what?  No parent, frantic or otherwise, waiting for her little darling.  And the kid had no idea where to get off, at first.

I "should have" just gone back to the school where I had picked her up and and left her there for them to deal with – they know who she is and who to call, and I don’t have a clue, myself. 

But, and I’m waiting to hear if I fucked up, I dropped her at the second stop ("No, honey, I can’t drive you to your apartment, sorry") and she walked off, trailing her book backpack on wheels.

(I told the dispatcher about it later that afternoon when I got back to the barn, and found out what I "should have" done.  Images of a lost little girl wandering SE 82nd Ave. are running through my head as I write, which, if you knew Portland, would make you worry too)

That incident made me REAL late for my third drop-off, and this time, there were no buses in the way at that third stop, like there had been the day before, and I got out of that lot with no problems.  The day before, I had brushed a Stop sign and pushed my mirror brackets way out of line.  I didn’t do that yesterday – plenty of room to get out with no other buses in my way, and as I passed it, I saw no damage to the sign I had "brushed", so whew!  Yeah!  Didn’t fuck up too badly!

By this time I was late on the route, and called the dispatcher on the radio they give us and told him I was behind.

It turned out I was just a minute off, getting to the skill center to pick up high school kids to take back to their high school, where I trade them for a load of kids to take home, so it worked out pretty well, and there is time built into the routes to cover that, so my second time of driving alone went fairly well.  (I had a guide in the morning, so this was only the second time I had driven by myself with a load of kiddies)

Then, at the High School, one of the other buses broke down, and we all had to back out and go out a different way.  Well, fortune smiled upon this Cat, since I was last in line anyway, and backing up was easy, with someone giving me directions outside. 

No problems there.

I ran that route with, like, minimal problems with the high schoolers, and made the right turns and more or less the right stops, and got back to the barn with no problems at all.

(ok, well, I did almost pass the last stop, but there was "assistance" from the kids on board, so I wasn’t too far off, tg)

(OK, "assistance in the form of yells, but, I got thick skin, so no problem)

</fon

t>

Like I said, I was blanking, trying to recall my routes as I drove around and dropped off 975 papers this morning, so I went back to the barn at noonish and drove my routes, twice, in my van, just to see them again, and to make notes on my copies of the routes sheets, which I got them to make for me – cuz, you know, there was office staff there today, even if no drivers were around.

I may look like a dedicated driver, pre-tripping my routes AGAIN, but I hate looking incompetant.  I really hate to look stupid.  I don’t mind so much, really, if I am stupid, but looking stupid?  No f-ing way do I want to look like that to anyone, especially high school students, who can be, like, merciless in their disdain.

I can do my paper routes half asleep, I’ve been doing them for years now, but soloing the bus routes is way new to me.  I have copies of the routes, and will do them again Saturday and Sunday too, if I feel like I need to. 

Even if I dont "need to" I probably will, like, just in case, ya know.

Not that I’m, like, dedicated or anything.

*****