Pants

Something in the back of my brain told me to put on pants this morning.

You see, today is the first day of school, so that means a ride to the bus stop. Since I stay in the car, I usually don't give much thought to what I'm wearing. Often it's whatever mismatched combination of shorts and T-shirt I wore to bed. Today's ensemble would've been the ThinkGeek 42 shirt, and a pair of too-large, hot pink jogging shorts.

I threw on a pair of sweatpants and a hoodie. Gray and maroon, so at least I didn't look colorblind.

Thank God I did, because wouldn't you know, the bus pulls in RIGHT NEXT TO MY CAR, and begins to smoke. Actually, both back tires. And not just a little smoke, but A LOT OF SMOKE. I expected shooting flames from the wheel wells.

I jumped out of the car, and at the same time the driver pops her head out of the bus. She tells me they just put new brakes on the bus, and something must've happened. She gets the kids off the bus and calls in for the backup. Meanwhile, the SMOKE is still pouring from the wheel area, and is beginning to stink up everything in the immediate vicinity. Including me.

Stinky bus brakes on fire.

So anyway. First day of school, bus breaks down, kids will be late going to a new school, and I shouldn't be surprised at this, really. Our school district has the shittiest track record for buses breaking down, and pretty much everything else as well. We have some of the highest school taxes in Pennsylvania, yet they can't seem to keep the buses running. They also can't keep the schools out of The No Child Left Behind probation for crappy test scores, but that's another story.

Really gives you the warm and fuzzies putting your kids on a bus that may, or may not, actually get them to school.

So here's hoping that my daughter's first day of school got better.

Now I'm off to wash the burning brake stench out of my hair. Ewww.