Okay, it has been awhile

but I am still here. School is over (YEAH) and I have been driving a small summer school route. I get to drive the short bus!! It is a very nice bus actually. Only a couple of years old and has a lot of bells and whistles. One of those "bells" is the "No Child Left Behind Alarm". It is designed to make the driver walk to the back of the bus to check every seat and make sure that there are no sleeping or hiding children still on the bus. After turning the bus off, the beeping starts and you have 45 seconds to get to the back of the bus or the system makes the bus horn honk and all the lights flash.Well, only the new buses have this. I don't normally drive a new bus. I drive a transit (flat nose) bus that is at least 10 yrs old. I went in to the shop the Friday before my route was to begin because I knew I wasn't familliar with the bus. So I played around with the lights than decided to pull up to the fuel station to top off. If the student loading system is activated at all, the flashing amber and reds on the top of the bus, than the alarm is armed.

I pull up to the pump, turned off the bus. The bus starts beeping. My 8 yr old starts freaking

I think I just left on the headlights. Flip them off. Nope, still beeping

Right at 42 seconds I said "Oh shoot" and made a bee line for the back of the bus.

Too late

HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK, HONK

New buses have very loud horns that are just as loud inside the bus as the outside.

After a frantic 10 seconds, I figured out how to turn off the alarm. It ment turning the bus on than off again, which takes about 15 seconds. Thankfully, the mechanic wasn't in the shop or I would still be remineded daily of my mistake.

But, I am thankfull. Another sub driver had picked done a elementry route than went over to the high school to pick up. We are suposed to turn off our engines at the schools. He did and didn't know how to disarm the alarm. So he got to sit at the high school, after school, fully loaded with a honking bus. He had to call on the radio to ask how to turn the alarm off and we all could hear the honk over the radio.

It doesn't seem quite so funny now :)