When you substitute drive, you never know what bus run you will get, or what bus you will be driving. Sometimes you get what is called a “spare bus” which means it is usually older than dirt. Today I had to drive a “spare” bus that was so old that it did not have a shoulder harness seat belt – only a lap style belt. On the good side, however, it had a cup-holder! I like it when the bus has a cup holder! But what aggravated the daylights out of me today was the fact that the windows were hard to open and close, and it took two hands to open and close the door. The weather was up in the 70′s today, so I really needed the windows open. So I told the kids to go ahead and open them. At the end of the run, I couldn’t get them closed again! So I had to tell the office that I needed help with that, and I don’t like to do that.
But what aggravated me even more was the fact that the fuel tank was almost empty when I got it. You are never supposed to leave a bus with less than half of a tank of fuel. So I had to fuel the bus before I could do my run, which made me late. And I try to fuel buses after the run because no matter how hard you try, you always get a little bit of diesel fuel on the soles of your shoes and so you are smelling diesel fuel during the entire run, which gives me a headache. So I’m cranky today!
I know what you mean, it is really aggravating to get behind the wheel of a vehicle that someone else drove and find that the first thing you need to do is fuel up!