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The Official Newspaper of Stinky Creek, Texas |
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The Official Newspaper of Stinky Creek, Texas |
Spittoon Features
Front Page The Daily Spittoon is updated every Monday morning before the entire staff heads over to the Stinky Creek Saloon for lunch. If you have any complaints, don't interrupt us while we're eating. Just send us an email. Send all
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It's a bird! It's a plane!
By Tracy Farr Being a school bus driver requires patience, diplomacy, cunning, stealth, a strong stomach, and the ability to get little Johnny to sit down and be quiet without stopping the bus to do it. What are the requirements for being president? I forget, but I’m sure it doesn’t include trying to convince little Becky Sue to keep her head inside the bus before an 18-wheeler lops it off. Presidents are mere humans dressed up in suits trying to convince you and me that they know what they are doing. School bus drivers are super human and wear capes and tights under their coveralls. A school bus driver has an arsenal of superpowers to use in order to keep the passengers in their seats and under control – the most effective being the “evil eye.” One look from the evil eye and any child will sit down, face forward and stop hawking snot into their neighbor’s hair. A president doesn’t know how to use the evil eye. The only thing a president has in his arsenal is the diplomatic grin, and on a school bus, diplomacy is not always the best policy. Yes, if little Johnny has a booger hanging out of his nose, it’s best to use diplomacy to help him clean out the attic. But when little Johnny is flicking his boogers into Becky Sue’s hair, it’s time for some hard-hitting dictatorship. A bus driver can get away with that. A president can’t. A school bus driver must be able to see through seats in order to see what big Johnny and Becky Sue are doing in the back of the bus. Are they writing things about others on the seat covers? Or are they snuggling real close, trying to cram in one more hug before they get off the bus? A president would keep looking straight ahead at the bigger picture, promising change and keeping an eye on the future of his legacy. A school bus driver would slam on the brakes and separate the two lovebirds before they made a living legacy of their own. A school bus driver must have super human powers of intuition as well as keen senses of smell and hearing. Why is little Johnny ducking down behind the seat? Is it possible that he’s crazy enough to light up a smoke? Doesn’t little Johnny know the bus driver can smell a Marlborough Man a mile away? And did I just hear him strike a match? A president would argue that no child, even a smoking one, should be left behind. A bus driver would do everything in his power to make sure Johnny’s behind would never again grace the seat of a bus. A school bus driver would never authorize the use of water boarding on a suspected bad guy, better known in bus driver circles as an SBG. Instead, he would make the SBG ride a school bus in the afternoon, sitting in Seat No. 7 right in front of little Johnny. Little Johnny likes to sing Deck the Halls every afternoon. He likes to sing it over and over again, but he only knows the first verse. Five minutes of listening to little Johnny would make any SBG spill his guts. School bus drivers should be venerated. They should be revered. They should be looked up to as people who have more guts than you or I. When they walk into a room, we should all stand in respect. If anyone deserves to have Hail to the Chief played for them, it’s a bus driver. In this time of political uncertainty, you, your spouse and your Aunt Edna in El Paso have probably already made up your mind as to whom you would like to see as our next president of the United States. As for me, I’m waiting for a candidate to stand up and proudly say, “I am a man of the people. I know exactly what you need. I was once a school bus driver.” That will be the person who gets my vote. |
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The Daily Spittoon is an independently owned rural newspaper. |
