Then don't drive a bus, brainiac!

The BBQ Pit
1

My youngest son is in junior high school. He walks a couple of blocks to his bus stop every day, leaving about 7:10. At 7:30 this morning he walks back in the house and says he needs a ride to school. Being a parent, I assumed he was screwing around and missed the bus, or that he was misbehaving and got kicked off the bus. Not this time!

The bus driver refused to take anyone to school this morning because one of the junior high school students was wearing perfume! She claimed she was allergic and so she kicked all the kids off the bus, not just the perfume wearer, and they had to find their own way to school.

This is wrong on about seven different levels.

  1. She has an obligation to these kids and their parents. It was fortunate that I was home to take my kid to school. A lot of parents weren’t, I’m sure, and most days I wouldn’t have been either. What were the kids supposed to do? Walk to school? Not that it’s far (it’s about three miles) but it’s a very busy road with no sidewalks. Go back home and terrorize the neighborhood? Wander the streets all day? Have dad come home from work and take them? She should have taken the kids to school and then gone to her boss and quit. Leaving kids standing in the street!

  2. Allergic to perfume? Assuming her complaint is real (which I’m not conceding) then what in the world is she doing driving a fricking school bus? Now that’s something you’d never expect in a million years! A teenager who wants to smell good! When my son puts on cologne (not every day, fortunatelyl) he puts on a LOT of cologne. He always wants the big warehouse size bottles of after shave because the regular size ones are only good for about three applications.

  3. She told the kids she was allergic and that they shouldn’t wear perfume. Give me a break! We’re all supposed to kowtow to your imaginary allergy, change our lifestyle to suit your neuroses? And telling a junior high school kid not to do something is always 100% effective!

  4. She punished everyone on the bus for something one person did. Even if the one person had done something really wrong you don’t throw everyone off the bus!

5.6.7. More of the same.

I called the school when I got back, just to make sure the “incident” got reported. I could tell from the harried reception I got that they had, indeed, heard about it. I was assured it wouldn’t happen again.

2

Your school bus driver is a schmuck. I’m glad you called the school.

3

How big was this bus? It was a bus, right? Not a Pinto? For heaven’s sake! I won’t even go into the odors left by the disinfectant cleaners usually used to clean buses–enough to choke a horse. Couldn’t this girl sit way in the back? Couldn’t the driver explain her allergy and ask the girl to sit there? Don’t school buses still have windows that open? What a crock.
This all sounds fishy to me. My bet is your son will be welcoming a new bus driver. I’m not knocking her allergy, but she could have handled the situation about twelve different ways that would have been better than the one she chose.
I think you have a right to be pissed. Good for you to call and report it.

4

There are these things called “antihistamines” which are ever so helpful for people with allergies. I should know - it’s pollen season in north Texas, and I’ve been gobbling them like M&Ms.

Sounds like that bus driver is missing a few letters from her mental keyboard. She should have herself a new one ripped by administration and count herself lucky if she still has a job.

5

Well, the allergy might be real. Many people are very allergic to perfumes and chemical smells. I am mildly allergic to some chemical smells, myself.

But I agree. If she is so allergic to perfume, she shouldn’t be driving a bus.

6

Yeah, it’s a travesty, but what do you expect? I mean it’s not like bus driver is exactly the most well respected profession, all the bus drivers I’ve had have been either retired people who wanted some additional income(they were generally cool) or people who couldn’t get other jobs.
I suspect that this bus driver is one of those.

(We had one bus driver that would just turn the bus around and drive back to school if anyone got on his nerves. The school was a 20 minute drive away…(we would leave by the emergency exit in the back of the bus at stop signs))

7

Environmental allergies are not neuroses. However, I agree with all of the rest of the OP’s complaints. What a shnook.

8

So, what happened to the bus driver? What’s the latest info?