Next week I will finish my 7th and final year of driving a school bus for our local school district. I might go and keep driving for another district in the area, as I really do like the kids, I like the hours, I like the driving, and I like that for a part-time job it actually pays pretty well, especially in this time in which CDL drivers are finally getting paid what they are worth. But I just can't keep driving where I'm at now.
Several people who know that I'm quitting have asked me why, and at times I tell them at least part of the story, and other times I fall back on the old excuse, "I just need a change." A part of me wants to write a 30-page screed listing each of the reasons why I want to leave (30 pages may not be long enough as these final few days wind down). Another part of me thinks about expressing myself through a screenplay about the brave and honorable bus driver saving the children from the bogeymen of school administrators and road graders.
But honestly I just don't think I want to spend my time doing something that nobody really cares about. So today I came up on my 5th-to-last route a little limerick that I should pull out if I get asked again.
There once was a driver from Mulvane.
The incompetent admins were driving him insane.
He thought about raising a mad mob,
But wisdom told him to quit the job,
Because it's just not worth the mental pain.
