A bus driver’s life is full of sights and sounds. Some days I wonder if being blind and deaf would make my job easier. Although morning runs are much quieter than afternoon runs, the best part of the day comes in the afternoon. The silence that falls after that last stop comes with a sense of relief akin to sliding into a hot bath after a day in the snow. I sigh audibly and drive back to the bus compound luxuriously relaxed.

Busses will always be noisy if you have very many kids. School kids are social and for most the bus ride is social time. But there is noise and then there is noise. Noise is the sound of fifty to sixty kids talking and laughing. Noise is the sound two boys four seats back screaming like girls. I’m not trying to be disparaging to girls here, but the boys really are screaming like girls—at least that is their goal.

Noise is the little Hispanic boy calling “TOREES! TORYEES” repeatedly until I am forced to answer. My name is Tory, but for some reason that is the way he hears it. I already know what he is going to say. In the all-seeing rear-view mirror I have been watching him poke his face around the edge of his seat again and again while the girl sitting there tries to backhand it like in Whack-A-Mole. She finally got him.

Noise is the continual farting sounds played with mouth against arms that comes from three seats back. I have been known to be entertained by bathroom humor, but these noises go on and on and on until even an aficionado like me can’t stand it anymore. When I finally make them stop the pee and “wiener” talk starts up.

These boys are brother and cousins. The oldest of them, who is nine, loves to bully the younger two who are seven. Bully may be too strong a word for it since the younger two enjoy it as much as the bigger boy. When I pull into the stop in the morning the little boys are attacking the big boy and he is collaring them and pulling them into bear hugs. They have the biggest smiles on their faces. They continue this wrestling on the bus. Finally I had to separate them which was a difficult decision. Why was it a difficult decision? You see, these boys love to sit by each other and wrestle. They are the happiest kids on the bus when they sit together. By separating them I took 80% of the fun factor out of their bus ride. I did separate them, though, and I’ve gotten over the guilt.

The things I see aren’t nearly so bad as what I hear. The worst thing I see is the face of kids getting on or off the bus with attitude. The attitude lasts only as long as they are passing me. We don’t even know each other, but I am the bus driver and an adult and thus their enemy. At least that is all I can figure out why they won’t say hello or goodbye, instead turning their heads away. These are usually middle school or high school kids. Most aren’t this way, but there are a few who always have that annoyed look on their face when they pass me.

One afternoon there were only four or five kids left on the bus. We were heading to the dairy where almost everyone who gets on the bus is a sibling or a cousin. I looked in the mirror to see a boy standing in the back with a tennis shoe in his hand holding it up to the nose of a girl (his cousin). She sniffed it cautiously before making a face and both broke up in laughter. All I know is what I saw on that one.

Sometimes after the dairy there is one little girl left on the bus. She would take exception at being called little. She is a sixth grader going on senior in high school, but she still looks like a little girl. Usually it is just she and I on the bus for the last eight miles. She only rides the bus home half the time. Because of the high seats I can’t see if she is on the bus or not, so after the Dairy Cream Gang gets off she will usually raise her hand and call out casually “I’m here.” On this particular day she called out “We’re here.” She had a friend coming home to play (er, “hang”) with her. About four miles into the back roads to her home I look in the mirror to see four bare feet resting on top of a seat. That was the only sign of them.

Perhaps thinking it would be better to be deaf and blind is taking it too far. If I were deaf and blind I wouldn’t have heard this:

Him: “Tory.”

Me: “Yeah?”

Him: “It’s my birthday.”

Me: “Happy Birthday!”

Him: “But nobody got me anything.”

Me: “That’s sad.”

Him: “Well, they got me a shirt.”

Me: “That a good gift.”

Him: “But it was a dirty shirt.”

At this point I realized the first grader was performing a comedy routine. And then the other day a little gal gave me a post it note telling me I was the best bus driver ever. It’s still stuck to my side window. So maybe it isn’t bad as all that.