By Dylan Flanagan ’16, Staff Writer

My experience on the bus this year has been “interesting.” Due to enough kids going to NA in my town, they provided a public bus that has no affiliation with the school. We have had three different drivers and they have all found a way to get fired. I have personally been on the bus for all three of these instances in which the three were fired.

Driver 1– our first driver of the year was to put it nicely, crazy. She had a fear of squirrels. Yes, you read that right, a fear of squirrels. One morning in the beginning of the year, she was driving up to the entrance of the school, and a squirrel ran across the street. She immediately screamed, SQUIRRRRRELLLL, and proceeded to pound on the brake as hard as she could, sending us all flying forward while the little squirrel darted across the road. Nobody understood why she had this strange reaction to squirrels. Maybe they were sacred in her country or something.  She was new to America and hadn’t quite yet understood the concept of speed bumps. She literally thought that it meant you speed over the bump as fast as you can.  When the company called the families to say she would no longer be our driver, they said the reason was because she was… inexperienced.

Driver 2– Driver 2 of the year did not like us; there is no nicer way of saying it. The bus is usually supposed to pick us up at 3:30. However, for two weeks in a row, she came at 5 O’clock, an hour and a half late. Finally, after two weeks of this, a girl on our bus (won’t mention names for her safety) and her mom decided to call the company. The next day she was on time but did not look happy. As soon as she opened the door she yelled, “Which one of y’all snitching on me. I don’t need this route. Pingry much better than y’all.” We have never seen her again since that day, but if you would like to find her, I’m sure you can find her hanging out with Pingry kids because she just loves them so much.

Driver 3– our last driver may have been the craziest and scariest of them all. Her nickname for me was Daddy, but that’s another issue for another time. One day as we were driving home from school, she said, “Daddy, come up here.” I was already hesitant from the start. She told me that the bus was running out of gas and that she needed to go back to the bus station to get more. We agreed but she then continued to say that we had to hide under the seats because she would get fired if her bus saw her bringing kids back to the station. As we began to pull in to her station, she screamed, “HIDE!” There are mostly middle school kids on my bus so they quickly fit their small bodies under the seats, but I had no such luck. I couldn’t get my head under the little gray seats, even with my brother trying to shove me in. “Daddy please, we almost there.” This was clearly the defining moment of her career. So, finally with my head under the seat next to a thousand chewed pieces of gum, we pulled into the gas line. After the man was done filling up the tank, her boss came out and asked to inspect the bus before she went back out on her runs. The next thing that happened you wouldn’t believe, she panicked before he could open the door and drove away screaming, probably over his foot.

You guessed it, the next day we had a new driver. One year, 4 months and 3 days till I get my license.