a long day

 The day began, for me, at 5 am.  I had to be at work at 6:30, and I was assigned bus 11.  I walked out into the lot and saw a bus parked next to number 12, which I drove Wednesday night, and got in it. started it up after looking at the DVIR to see when it got refueled (yesterday), and drove off, stopping at the truck stop to get some coffee, then out to Jesuit to get the Volleyball team.  They were half an hour later than the paperwork said, but what the hell, I’m on the clock, so what.  I took them to a nearby high school for the state wide semi-finals, dropped them off, and found a place to park on the other side of the school.

It was still early for me; I took a nap.  I got out later to have a smoke and then realized, oh shit, I took the wrong bus.  Yup, someone had a sense of humor today, on 11/11/11, by giving me the 11 bus… but I took number 10 by accident.  Oooops.  Hope I didn’t screw up anyone else.  I called base and told them – I try to own my mistakes, but I felt less than brilliant all day.

Today’s charter length was dependant on whether or not my girls won their game this morning – if they didn’t, I would have took them back to school and that would be that – I’d be dismissed for the day.  If they won the game, I’d take them to the semi-finals again tonight, killing four hours or so in the middle of the day.

Short story shorter, my girls won their game, and I took them to one of the girl’s homes and dropped them off and took the coaches back to the school. I walked over to micky d’s and bought a few dollar burgers… and took a nap.  Or two, until 4 when I drove back to get the girls (and backed my bus down a driveway because it was raining heavily and the coaches said "Oh you can do it!"  and they didn’t want the girls to walk up that hill.  I did too, flawlessly, using the GOAL method – Get Out And Look before backing)

I took my girls back to the high school hosting the playoffs (no tickets for the driver, so I didn’t see the game) and hung out for three more hours.  Cutting to the chase, the girls won and have the Championiship game tomorrow. 14.75 hours on the clock for me today.

I drive the winner’s bus.  I do – it’s an unbroken record this year.  (ok, well, one of the school I drive for lost their football game, but I didn’t have the players on MY bus, I had the cheerleaders, so it’s ALMOST an unbroken record. Be all technical, why doncha)  My teams have won all their games.

I didn’t say anything about that, being the winner’s bus. to "my" girls, because, you know, it’s the players who win the games, but ya know, I feel like a good luck charm or something.

I have ’em again tomorrow, for THE game – the state championship game.  I have bus 21 tomorrow.  I’ll get it right this time – 21 looks very different than 10/11/12 do – it’s an older bus, one I like (I haven’t really found one I don’t like yet).  I don’t have to be there until 4 in the afternoon – I have a good chance of getting in the right bus this time, lol.

IRONY:

When I parked at the playoff school, I stayed right where I dropped my girls off – I had seen a yellow school bus stay there this afternoon, while I had moved my bus to another lot, and the coaches had to hunt me down.  I stayed where I dropped of the girls and told the coaches I wouldn’t move unless someone told me to.

No one did, so I stayed there, and the ironic thing is this:  a school bus from the school district I used to work at parked right behind me.  The coaches had been worried about that team… but "we" won that game, and it’s the state championship game for MY team tomorrow.

Ha ha ha.

I drive the winner’s bus.

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On other fronts.  The city has ordered "Occupy Portland" out of the two parks they occupy by midnight tomorrow.  It looks like we’ll be National News tomorrow – Occupy Portland says they won’t go peacefully.

We’ll see what we see.

I predict a "newsworthy" event.

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btw, the new TV show "Grimm" is filmed in Portland.  Wanna see my city?  Tune in on Friday nights.

 

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