School bus fun

[Major Mud]

First off, Thanks a million to Harley for the help, even though we just sat and watched.

Anyways to make a short story long....
I get a call this morning around 8:30 from my daughter. This is odd because at 12 years old, she should be in school. The wife takes the call and it seems to be from a cell phone because the recption is terrible. So bad in fact that the wife can only understand that it is my daughter and that she has not made it to school yet. The connection is lost and we are left to wonder what is going on. Keep in mind that she gets picked up in front of the house around 6:20. After a few more failed attempts, she finally gets through around 9:15 or so. I take the call and ask her what's up. She tells me the bus has gone off the road and is stuck in the ditch. I ask if anyone is hurt and she tells me no. The next question she asks makes me proud to be a "wheeler". She says, "Dad, can the jeep pull out a bus"?  ::Jeep::  Sorry kiddo, not on the ice we had. But, I reassure her that all will be fine and I will figure out something. So after hanging up with her, I call Harley and the conversation goes something like this.

Harley: Whassup Esay?
Me: Not much. What is your winch rated at?
Harley: Uhhhhhh, What?
Me: How much weight can your winch pull?
Harley: 9500 pounds straight line, 19,000 with the snatch block. Why?
Me: What do you think a bus weighs? ::woot::

After a few more questions, he says he'll be right down to get me. He gets over here and tells me we are nuts for trying to do this. Yep, he's right cuz the second we leave the driveway, we are sideways on Potter Rd. No need for the seatbelt cuz my touchhole has puckered so much, I am suctioned right to the passenger seat.  After a 15 minute ride to get about 2 miles to where her bus is stuck, we pull up next to the bus and offer to help. Anyone familiar with the northeastern part of Davison will surely know where Dead Man's Hill is at the end of Washburn Rd. Yep right at the entrance of the hill is where the bus was. Since I know most of the kids on the bus (most of them are my kids friends), I start talking to them and asking them if they're all ok. All the kids are fine, but the bus driver tells us the school wouldn't approve of us doing the extraction (liability insurance and all). So we turn the jeep around and as we are, we see the tow truck coming. Chris makes a comment that the tow truck driver better hit the gas a bit. Sure enough, he starts sliding a bit and we are taking bets if he will make the top of the hill. About then, he starts sliding more to the east (off the road) and I'm thinking great, I'm gonna have to be strap b**ch for a fricken' tow truck. ::poke::  All the while, Harley is bustin' a gut cuz this dumb tow truck driver is about to bury his big ol truck. After he backs down and then finally makes it up he gets down to business. He breaks out all kinds of chains and snatch blocks and starts hooking up. Now I really don't question people in professions that I'm not in, but the way this dolt hooked up this bus, we were waiting for him to rip off the bumper, or drivers side front tire or maybe even snap the tie rod in two. After what seemed like an eternity, this goofy old dude finally strarts to take up the slack in the cable. He's got the front on one hook and the back on another. He starts reeling both ends in at the same time. At this point, I'm already seing the wording on the class action wrongful death suit when this poor excuse for a tow truck driver rolls this bus over and sends it back down the hill full of kids. Well, somehow, he keeps the bus rubber side down, and all the kids survive the ordeal. Now it's almost 4 hours after my kid first got on the bus. The bus driver looks down the hill, and sees the parents of 2 of the kids on the bus. The bus garage told him that the parents were coming to get their kids and that when they got there, he could release them to the custody of the parents. This proved to be just as much entertainment as the last half hour. As the kid (who Harley and I both agreed was being a pain from the moment we got there) goes to step off the bus, he jumps off the last step and lands feet first on the nice wet, slippery ice that the bus just 3 short hours ago slid off the road on. And with that his feet promptly got to about the same height as his eyes. It was at that very point that physics took over and, with the help of karma, promptly planted this little show off on the seat of his pants. ::ouch::  Yes, Harley and I have our reservations in Hell secured now, as we both laughed, and I must add that we laughed VERY LOUDLY!! Maybe it was our uncontrolled laughter, or maybe karma wasn't yet done with this kid, but after he righted hisself, he took about 5 more steps and as they say in showbiz, he gave us an encore. Yep except this time his landing strip was a rather large puddle. I saw a 400 pound man do a belly flop on a cruise ship that couldn't match the splash this kid made on impact. Yes, karma is alive and well folks! :mrgreen:  So, wet kid makes it to his ride, tow truck guy packs up and heads out, the bus is free, so we head out. After a 10 to 15 minute squirrly ride home, I walk up the steps to my front door. I walk through the door and my wife is just then picking up the phone. It is the school administration calling (4 hours late) to tell us that our daughter's bus has gone off the road, but was rescued and is on the way to the school. Now I don't know exactly how many people on here are parents, but those that are could probably imagine just how fired up we as parents were to find out from the school that our daughter was ok 4 HOURS AFTER THE FACT!!!!! Thank god for cell phones. because without them, I might have missed the best belly-flop-in-a-puddle ever known to man.

In the aftermath of all this, I questioned the school administration about the fact that they waited 4 hours to call and let me know my kid was in a ditch 2 1/2 miles from home. The response I got was "We are sorry that our courtesy call, which we DIDN'T HAVE TO MAKE, was so late. Normally we wouldn't have called, but because they missed a half day of school, we figured we should". :evil:  Gee, thanks for tha call. We didn't mean to make you have to get off your administrative a$$ for more than 3 seconds to let me know my kid was alright. I asked the "administrator" in charge of deciding wheter or not to call off school if he knew the road conditions were bad. He tells me he drove almost every road in the district and he didn't find any ice that would substatiate a need to close school. I asked him if he drove any dirt roads. He told me that only about 15% of the district lived on dirt roads, and it would be an inconvenience to the some 2,000 or so families to close school just because the backroads were "a little icy". Well gee gosh golly, there were only 4 or 5 of the 18-20 busses that run in the Davison school district in the ditch this morning. That's not bad. And Lapeer closed school because the back roads were slippery. The best part about the last statement was that my daughters bus was running the county line when it got stuck. Yep, I guess when Lapeer's back roads are bad, Genessee county's back roads may be as well.  


Well, I guess I'll end my rant here, because anyone that read this far is probably asleep by now.







Cliff notes version: Daughter picked up for school by bus @ 6:20, gets to school at 10:45 due to being in ditch, and i should feel lucky that I got a courtesy call from the school (And if you skipped to this part, you missed my lesson about karma!)

[naypalm]

Wow, thats Davison for ya, never wanting to close even in extreme conditions. I'm surprised you even got a call, I've been one of those kids before when our bus got into serious accidents and was always the first to tell my parents.

Glad nothing went wrong with the dummy tow truck guy!

[Anonymous]

I read the whole post.  Was funny to think about that little dill-weed kid again.  Karma is a b!tch.

[Major Mud]

Yeah, it was rather awesome seeing some poetic justice dished out by an icy road

[Anonymous]

well, if it's any consolation, they did decide not to have PM kindergarten.  (Probably because the buses that are used to pick up the afternoon kindergarteners were still in the ditch when it was time for the afternoon run...... :mrgreen: )



I was surprised that they had school yesterday because Henderson road SUCKED when we were headed your way.  Of course, I am an expert driver in such conditions so they didn't bother me  :roll:  but I sure wouldn't have wanted to be a bus driver yesterday.  I would have called in sane....

[94_xj_country]

I call Harley and the conversation goes something like this.

Harley: Whassup Esay?

essay? i usually get the french lady "chello"

[Anonymous]

I call Harley and the conversation goes something like this.

Harley: Whassup Esay?

essay? i usually get the french lady "chello"

hmmmmmmmmmmmm, I always get, "WHAT, BITCH?"





Just kidding  

[longarm]

I call Harley and the conversation goes something like this.

Harley: Whassup Esay?

essay? i usually get the french lady "chello"

hmmmmmmmmmmmm, I always get, "WHAT, BITCH?"  Just kidding  

Really, I get that, among several other profane titles.  Try and explain that when your in a roomfull of coworkers or your kids and your Nextel chirps with a friendly greeting from Harley.    ::trout::   I do like the story though.  Kharma is alive and well.

[Anonymous]

Vibrate works wonders.  Verbal abuse is my BEST FRIEND  :mrgreen:  I'm an Equal Opportunity Offender  :twisted:

[longarm]

Vibrate works wonders.  Verbal abuse is my BEST FRIEND  :mrgreen:  I'm an Equal Opportunity Offender  :twisted:

You crack me up sometimes Harley.   :mrgreen:

[jeepgirl95]

That was pretty funny!  
Was this on Tuesday or Wednesday.....Lapeer had school on Wednesday but not on Tuesday.

[NewRide]

Yup Karma is a bitch ! Glad everyone is ok !! Atleast they called you !! My daughter was the one who told us " Oh ya by the way our bus ran into the ditch today and we were 3 hours late for school...." AND NO ONE FROM THE SCHOOL CALLED !!! Gotta love school officials lol

[Anonymous]

It was Tuesday morning Pam

[Major Mud]

Yep, Tuesday.

The part that really cheesed me off was I e-mailed the superintendant about the whole deal, and he had some assistant call me, and the assistant told me they didn't think about closing school because only the back roads were bad. He also told me that only about 15% of kids in the district are on back roads. I guess that means if you don't live on M-15, Davison Rd, or in one of the people farms (subdivisions) that your kids are expendable. He also didn't want to inconvenience all the other parents by calling off school. Oh, then go ahead and inconvenience me because of where I live.

Yep, Mel, he made sure to bring that to my attention also. "We realized we made a mistake so we closed afternoon kindergarten." Hey, great since by then, between the temperature and road commision, the roads were fine. Way to be on the stick. Kinda' interested to see what happens tommorow if we get all the snow that's being predicted.

[Anonymous]

Kinda' interested to see what happens tommorow if we get all the snow that's being predicted.

I bet I'll be plowing your driveway ::ouch::