The Thin Line Between Insanity and Motivation

If I may, I'd like to move aside and address a subject of a more serious note.  I'm at my wits end and I don't know what else to do.  I've tried to be reasonable, but these little monsters can't be reasoned with and I'm slowly beginning to lose my f*cking mind.

As some may know, after nearly a year of unemployment, the only job that I was able to procure was that of a school bus driver.  At the time, I had just about as many naysayers as I had support in my decision to accept this vocation.  Oddly (to most normal people, but not to myself) it was my immediate family who told me I never had the temperament for the position.  That I would lose my cool with the children and go off like some kind of madman.  Screaming and swearing like a lunatic sailor.  I know myself better than 99.9999% of everyone around me and I can say with all certainty, this would never happen, nor will it.  I will admit, however, that there have been incidents.., in the past..., where, YES, I went off on a deserving individual.  Case and point, that fellow a few years ago who disrespected Remembrance Day, saying it was a scam because poppies are a major contributor to the narcotic known the world over as, Heroin.  I lost it on the motherf*cker and I'd do it again, if needed be.  With the children, on the other hand, never.  No matter how f*cking stupid some of their antics are, I wouldn't do that.

Growing up, I was submersed in an environment that provided very little by way of emotional support.  Any dream I had, was quickly dashed as being unrealistic or impossible for someone like me to achieve.  (Thanks mom & dad.)  I'm not making excuses for my limitations in this life, but merely making an example of how I didn't want to be towards the next generation of children.  Whether they be mine, nieces and nephews or anyone's children.  One of the worst things anyone can bear witness to is seeing the light of hope and wonderment fade from a child's eye.  I've seen dreams dissolve in the mirror on more than one occasion in my lifetime.

Driving a school bus is fairly stressful.  It's not the fifty or sixty kids that ride, but the fact that I'm driving something as large as some small bungalows down the street.  From about six months to about the age six years old, my family (mom, dad, sister & I) lived in a small mobile home.  That trailer was about the same size as the school bus that I currently drive.  Couple that with the strains of asshole drivers who constantly cut me off, flip me the bird and just plain drive erratically around me, there's a lot to keep my concentration.  I have seven mirrors in addition to the front windshield, which the instruction manual indicates I cannot maintain a gaze of more than a couple of seconds.  Add in the commotion of fifty or sixty kids (sometimes more) and you have the ingredients for a catastrophe.  I, somehow, manage.  As stressful as all that is, I find it fairly easy to do.  What I find waning on my sanity, is the....  I don't even know how to describe it, other than to label it for exactly what it is.  Stupidity bullshit!!!

It's narrowed down to about three or four boys.  All the girls on the bus, know how to behave.  They break the rules by eating, which is strictly not allowed, but as many times as I've explained why they can't do it, they all know my stand on the subject which is simply:  IF YOU CHOKE AND DIE, IT'S NOT MY PROBLEM!!  Of course, we all know that if someone is to choke and die, it's DEFINITELY going to be my problem, but they don't need to know that.  The boys on the other hand...  Driving me f*cking insane!!

Some days, there's one or two who like to talk about their "little boy parts", which I've explained is unacceptable, but that goes in one ear and out the other.  There's been talk of pooping on one another or throwing said poop at people, mainly girls.  Or what I find to be the most intolerable, the plain nonsensical noises.

Tonight, I had to deal with fog, icy roads, asshole drivers, an overheating bus and six children screaming at the top of their lungs, the words "bub, bub, bub"!!  Repeatedly, for eighty percent of the run, "bub, bub, bub".  If it were in unison, it'd almost be tolerable, but it was like a war.  One kid would shout out the name of another, repeatedly until the kid would answer, "What?!"

"Bub, bub, bub, bub, bub, bub...!!!"

"Quiet down!" I'd say sternly.  There'd be a short reprieve, then "Hey H_____! Bub, bub, bub, bub, bub...!!"  .....Well God damn!! Seconds later, they'd all chime in, once again, the insanity returning li like an overpowering avalanche of noise and destruction.

Before letting them off at their stop, I spoke with the culprits, sternly explaining that the bus is not a playground.  That the foolishness that they do on the playground cannot be played out on the bus.  That their excessive noise is very distracting and could cause us to have an accident.  As I looked at the silent group staring back at me I knew my words really hit home...  Literally.  They went in one ear and out the other, echoing off the walls of the bus.  Boys can be so God damned stupid, sometimes.

I'm at my wit's end.  I don't know what else to do.  After dropping the kids at their last stop, I was steaming.  I was so frustrated with the entire scenario that it finally gave me that kick in the pants that I needed.  I know what I need to do now.  The answers are so clear.  Like a crystal hanging in the sunlight, it's light appearing so vividly in all it's colourful splendor.  This insanity is the motivation I need to commit to writing the exams to get those other licenses that I need to get out of this whole school bus driving bullshit.  I like most of the kids.  I really do.  Most of them are great.  It's just the two or three that are pissing me off enough to make me wanna leave.  I'm going to write those tests next week.  Wish me luck!!

Who Shot Will Sasso?

Got a call yesterday from my brother-in-law who is also my accountant.  I took in all my receipts and documentation to do with my income taxes a week or so ago and he's completed my taxation already.  For the first time in years, I'm finally going to get a refund, as opposed to having to pay in.  I guess unemployment has it's perks, although I'd imagine the fifty-two bucks coming my way will be diverted into the outstanding amount owed from four years ago, which I'm thinking is still in the thousands, or something along those lines.

I asked B___ what I owed for doing my taxes and he compassionately told me to simply bring him a coffee with cream.  As I said, unemployment has it's perks.  So I stopped at the nearest Tim Horton's by his office, to assure freshness and temperature, but what a chore that ordering process was.  [Head slap!]

I've voiced my opinions on this subject before and god damn it, I guess I'll be voicing them again.  I feel for any poor f*ck who faces oppression on a day-to-day basis in whatever backward f*cking country they come from, having to flee to the freedoms provided by one of the greatest countries in the world, Canada, but god damn it.  Learn the f*cking language.

It's good that there are people coming into this country who are willing to take those shitty f*cking jobs that no one with a grain of self respect would ever do as a life long vocation.  Flipping doughnuts, schlepping french fries or whatever the f*ck, but damn it!  Learn the language.  If you want to speak your jibberish in the back of the kitchen while preparing salads or cream-filled eclairs, then by all means, do that.  If you're going to work the front counter, then learn the language.  If I, myself, decided one day, "F*ck it!  I'm going to move to Buttf*ckistan."  I'm going to learn to speak Buttf*ckistani, come hell or high water.  I would show the Buttf*ckistanians that much respect.  I wouldn't dream of clumsily selling goat milk with my thick non-Buttf*ckistanian English.  The same should go for here in Canada.

An order that should have taken sixty seconds, at most, to place, took nearly four minutes of my endless failures to comprehend the less-than-broken English of (more consonants than vowels) girl.  I asked for an extra large coffee with cream and got the response, and I'm not exaggerating, "Doo da tray dee dee?"  I assume she asked a question as her tone rose at the end of her garbled speak.  "No," I said, "I want a large co-ffee, with creeeeam."

"Doo da tray dee dee?" she asked, with a look on her face like I was supposed to know what the f*ck she was saying.  "WHAT?" I confusedly responded.  She just smiled and repeated, "Doo da tray dee dee?"  I stared at her blankly...  "I...  I don't know what that means."

"Doo. Da. Tray.  Dee dee?" she said slowly, as if that was going to help.

"I want an extra large coffee with cream." I said.

"Ah." she muttered, and I swear I saw a light coming on.

"Oh good," I said, "I thought I was going to have to shoot myself in the head over that."

"Oh.  You want shot o assass-oh?"

"What?!" I charged, "Who shot Will Sasso?"

"No. You want shot o assass-oh!"

"WHAT?!?" I just stared at her, as she stupidly smiled back at me.  Truly a living example of: The lights are on, but nobody's home.  Dumb as f*ck!!

The one thing that stupidity has that I would consider to be a good trait is; Stupidity is colour-blind.  In fact, stupidity is affirmative action.  Stupidity, for all intense purposes, accepts people of all colours, cultures, creeds, and etcetera.  No matter what background you come from, whether you're a camel jockey from Kuwait or a race car driver in Milan or that Ivy League professor in Connecticut, you all possess the possibility of being painfully stupid*.

I don't know what the solution is to all this.  I wish there were a simple vaccine that people could get shot in their asses, that would vanquish stupidity forever, but until that day comes, I'm afraid all of us, myself included, are going to have to grow thicker skins in order to deal with these stupid f*cking people, whether they are domestic or imported.  In the meantime, maybe we need support groups.  A weekly meeting where us normal people can meet up for tea and cookies and a sympathetic shoulder to lean on while we talk out the idiocies that we're forced to contend with on a daily basis.

I did, finally, get my order.  Like I said, it took way longer than it needed to have taken, and it was finally because (more-consonants-than-vowels) girl finally handed me off to another bloke.  His English was atrocious, as well, but at least he was smart enough (barely) to take my order, accurately, and send me on my way.

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Side Note: (*I met a college professor once, who was highly decorated with all kinds of diplomas and certificates.  He had a brand new car, which was failing miserably.  The cause was no oil.  He'd run the car for a couple of years, never changing the oil or even checking it or anything of the sort.  Then one day, he turned the key and the engine had seized up on him and he couldn't figure out why.  No oil,  stupid!!)