The wheels on the bus go round and round...

Remember when field trips on yellow school buses were fun? Everyone fought to sit over the wheels or in the little half seat in the back of the bus that you could have all to yourself? You'd sit with your friends, make too much noise and try to get passing truck drivers to honk you. Fun, huh? Yeah those days are over. I had the misfortune of riding on a school bus this week for the first time in at least 8 years and it was nervousing. (Yes I know that's not a word, but it should be.)

School buses are not what they used to be. Now they are little more than big yellow death traps on wheels. It certainly didn't help that the bus driver couldn't have been more than 15. Don't you at least have to have a licence to drive a bus full of children? Also I think he had his 13 year old girlfriend riding shot gun. Do their parents know they stole the keys?

I was also very comforted by the fact that he had to ask how to get back to the camp from OMSI. Uh, isn't that sorta what you're paid to do? Drive a bus from point A to point B and then, oh I don't know, back again!? Right.... And lucky for all of us the best way back involved the Ross Island Bridge and the awful merge you have to make onto Powell. At least it seems that other drivers hit their brakes when they see a bus pull out in front of them.

Back to the bus though... In case anyone was wondering school buses still look like this on the inside. They are still filthy. The same lame graffiti is still written on the back of the seats. They still have the same first aid kit hanging by the stairs, which by the way, I am almost certain is either empty or full of band-aids from the 60's. And the windows are still entirely impossible to open. Isn't there even a Seinfeld bit about that? Maybe I just made that up, anyways there should be if there isn't.

But mayhaps the most exciting revelation of the whole trip was realizing that the little light box up above the driver actually serves a purpose. I specifically remember watching that light box as a child and wondering what the hell it was for. Why the lights were lighting up when they did? Was there some sort of pattern? A secret meaning behind the lights? That light box is a brilliant invention. It is there to calm the nerves of anyone on the bus who drives, is paying attention and happens to not enjoy careening across I-5 on the Marquam Bridge in a bus going 60. The lights show you when the driver is or is not using his breaks, is or is not signaling and when death is or is not mere moments away. Thanks little light box! You made the bus right slightly more manageable...