Story of the Day 9/7/2011

It was 3:50 PM and my daughter’s bus went streaking past our house and on down the street.

Oh no….I knew what that meant, from the incident during the first week of school. A sub driver.

A sub driver is bad enough if you are on a tight schedule and you are waiting for child number three to arrive home so that you can all rush out the door to the piano lessons or soccer practice or even the dentist- who feels rather sad being in last place on this list.
But, when you child is deaf- as in deaf and doesn’t’ hear and doesn’t’ talk, and the bus driver misses the stop, you have to hope that the bus driver actually stops at the next stop, which is only 2 blocks away. In the rain.
Because your daughter cannot yell out, “Hey, you missed my stop!”, but has to make her way to the front of the moving bus, and get the bus driver’s eye, and try to gesture to him or her what ahs happened- which translates into” the bus will already be at the next stop , so she might as well just get off there.”

But, to my surprise, less than 2 minutes later, my daughter comes walking through the door. She has mysteriously materialized. Maybe the bus driver backed the bus up, just for her?

No, it turns out that he bus driver missed a stop before our house. Although not by a lot, because that kid isn’t deaf and did yell out, “Hey, you missed my stop!” So, the driver stopped a couple of houses late about 2 blocks before our house. And before getting off, the kid pointed at Sarah and told the driver something to the effect that her stop was next. So, Sarah made her way up to the front of the bus and the driver looked at her expectantly, and then horrified, when she gestured that she couldn’t’ hear or talk. Horrified, even though she has never been known to bite anyone.

That I know of.

So with her up near him, he drove down our street, keeping one eye on the road and one eye on her or at least ready for her to gesture to him- which isn’t as dangerous as it might seem because there tends to be almost no traffic on our long rambling street, and she, worried he would both drive past her stop and have a nervous breakdown as he kept one eye on the road and one eye on her and worried about being bitten, gestured for him to drop her off a couple of houses early.

When he stopped the bus, Sarah gave him a “thumbs up” and a big smile, and he gave her what can best be described as the look of a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding semi.

So, when I spotted the bus speeding past our house, it was the very relieved driver hustling out of here as fast as possible and away from the dangerous deaf kid…….