Watch Out World!

I'm driving a schoolbus.

The school informed me that I needed to get my CDL license and that I would probably be given a route. No, you don't have a choice, and if you don't take a route you won't have a job either. Thank you sir, may I have another.

Yikes.

I was told in the beginning of the year that I wouldn't have to drive a bus because I was working in a special ed classroom and I had 30 hours a week. Full-time staff isn't required to drive a bus. Well, apparently that provision is flexible depending on the needs of the school. In other words, if we need you to drive, your gonna drive. Great.

So, starting today, little ol' me will be driving a schoolbus. A schoolbus! I was afraid to start driving a normal car! I didn't want to drive so much that I postponed getting my license until I was 18.

Lord help me.

To make matters worse, I rode the route with the old driver and the new afternoon driver (I'll be driving mornings) on Friday. Our bus, is a fossil. This was the bus in the bus lot that the trainer took us on for five minutes, just to show us. He walked us on saying the words, and I  qutoe: "Oh, you'll never have to drive one of these, but I want you to get a look at one just in case."

Thanks Bo.

To top off the fact that we're driving this wreck, we also found out that there is a really bad turnaround on the route. The road we have to turn around on is unfortunately very accurately named Point's End.

It's one lane.

With a lawn on one side and trees, shrubs and mud on the other.

You have to execute a five-point turn in a bus. A school bus, for those of you who are curious, weighs in at 32,000 lbs, is 8 feet tall, and 40 feet long.

40 feet.

And I have to do a five-point turn in it. AHHHHHHHH!

Hang on a second while I stop hyperventilating.

Ok, I think I'm alright now. The only saving grace is that I'm driving so early (6:15) that there won't be anyone on the roads, and I'll be able to do my turnaround before any kids are on the bus. The last thing I need is a bunch of Highschoolers witnessing my humiliation and my destruction of private and public property...

Wish me luck, and if I don't write for a while you'll know that I'm out looking for work.

~ Jen