Here at RJ Battles I just write about record sleeves and things like that; it isn't current events.
But last night I was at this pizza shop in town, waiting for my onion rings, and reading the local paper.
There was a story about a 4 year old pre-schooler who rides to school on a smaller bus (I'm not talking about a "short bus"; I'm just saying, according to the story, it isn't full-size), and the other day he didn't get off at the pre-school because he fell asleep. The bus driver continued driving and parked at her house.
As the newspaper writer says, this is where the stories of the bus driver and the child begin to differ.
The bus driver says that once she arrived at her house she made a routine check of all the seats, as is required, and saw the sleeping boy. She woke him up, took him inside, and tried, unsuccessfully, to contact the school.
The boy ended up arriving at the school after 9am.
The boy says- or, according to the mother, the boy says- that he woke up alone on the bus, managed to open the bus door, and went up to the driver's house and knocked on the door.
The mother wants the police to press child endangerment charges and for the driver to be suspended while the investigation takes place (she's furious that the same driver was there to transport her son the next day. She said she plans to keep him home tomorrow).
The owner of the bus company said that all the busses are equipped with GPS so they know everywhere a bus goes and what time it's there. And further, all evidence they've seen backs up the driver's version of events.
There are some things I'm not sure of. I think it's possible that this boy simply dreamed that he woke up alone on the bus. Maybe he just wanted an interesting story to tell his parents- how he woke up trapped on the bus but managed to open the bus door and let himself out.
Or maybe he's telling the truth and the bus driver is lying to protect her job.
Either way, I'm 100% on the side of the bus driver. Why should she lose her job just because some kid fell asleep? And I don't care if he's 4- who falls asleep on the way to school? What, was he up till 3am studying for a test the night before?
So maybe she dropped off the students- the ones who managed to stay awake for 15 minutes- and then she drove home, parked the bus in her driveway, and went inside without walking through it. How many bus drivers really bother doing that? Because how often is there still a student on the bus?
This kid was in zero danger. Maybe he slept for 30 minutes in some driveway on a quiet street on a cool, sunny morning. He got to school eventually.
Before even reading the story, just based on the headline, where she's described as "irate", I already didn't like her. If there's ever been a situation where everyone involved should just laugh it off, this is it. Instead, she's trying to ruin the poor bus driver's life.
I hope the bus driver makes it through this, and I'm glad to see that the bus company is standing by her. Hopefully the mother will decide to pull out Sleepy McGee and home school him instead.
There are some people that I've come across and right away I can tell that they're assholes. It's like they have signs over their heads: Trouble flashing in neon lights. At work I'll see the glow and stand back and watch while someone else takes care of them and I watch it all unfold. Afterwards the co-worker will come up to me and say, "That guy was such a fucking dick".
I know that the mother is that type of person. I'm also thinking that she might be hoping to make some money off of this. I'm sure she's talked to a lawyer.
Anyway, this isn't the usual kind of RJ Battles post, but it is something that interests me so I guess it qualifies.
