Bring back communal bus stops so I'm never late for work again!

When I was a kid my entire neighborhood gathered at a communal bus stop down the street from my house. I knew that at 6:55 a.m. that I had better get my ass out of the house if I was going to catch the bus. Truthfully though, I would always miss the bus. I hated taking the shitty bus to school. I was picked on relentlessly when I was a teenager, so it was much easier to just have my Dad drive me in.

My Dad

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Much like adulthood, my childhood involved me arriving late; everywhere I went. The thing is though, it was my doing. My Dad could basically take a right onto Long Pond Rd and have me to school in 5 minutes flat. I chose the time I would leave the house.

Now, as an adult, when getting to work is an absolute necessity, without fail, I will get stuck behind one of these big yellow banana looking monstrosities.

Your kid's need to get to school. Awesome sauce. I get it. Here's an idea though, when the bus arrives at, say 8:05, maybe your kid should be at least half dressed and not shoving granola bars down his throat as they make a mad dash to the bus.

That's not even the worst part of it. Hey, I'm a reasonable enough guy. I'm assuming that I'm not the only one that has issues adulting. I get it. The problem I have is that the bus driver is sitting outside your house for 5 minutes waiting for your kid to get out and I'm like...

Yay! Finally! The kid gets on the bus, slow and methodical, probably taking to all his 7 year old friends about the latest Pokemon craze as he saunters down the aisle.

Shawn in the meantime is looking at his watch every second and a half and going into a murderous rage.

Why do you keep stopping!?!

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See those red dots on that map above you? Those are bus stops!

So basically every 10 yards or so I am stopping, waiting for a kid or two to get on the bus and dilly dallying as I watch them eventually sit down. Now mind you, I can see around the side of the bus. I can see another group of 3-4 kids, 20 goddamn feet away-WAITING!! They can literally walk 12 steps and get on the same bus.

Now it would make sense if there were no sidewalks. Sure, you don't want your kids walking to another bus stop on a busy street.

I can understand if the kids are alone and the parents are telling them "don't you dare cross that street".

The problem is that there unless the bus is stopping in front of your house, then the parent to kid ratio is 3:1 at each stop. The only thing I can come up with is that maybe parent group A hates parent group B and crossing the street to catch the bus together would be akin to treason. Maybe Bill hasn't returned the lawnmower to Mr. McPheely. I don't know!

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I can just imagine the bus driver looking out their rear view mirror and seeing 150 cars behind them. They're either shitting themselves or laughing maniacally at the chaos they cause.

When I would take the bus as a kid I remember vividly my bus pulling over constantly to let a stream of cars go by. The only reason I remember this was because it made my bus ride longer and that was never a good thing.

Maybe it's against the bus driver code of ethics or something now but this never happens anymore. As long as they are picking up every kid in town, 10 feet away from each other, they don't have a care in the world.

All the while, the kids in the back of the bus are staring at me with evil amusement.

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