Shane Has Ridden the Same Bus Approximately 400 Times.
It seems not quite possible – but it happened again.
Shane has been riding the bus home from school since the beginning of sixth grade. He is now in eighth grade. So for more than two full years, he has had the same bus driver. Occasionally she is absent, but otherwise she drives the bus every day.
I drive him to school in the morning, but he rides the bus home almost every day.
So every day at 3:00, Shane goes to his locker, grabs his backpack, shoves his stuff into it, and races to get on the school bus. The buses don’t wait for long – they are all gone before 3:10 – but he knows how much time he has, and he has mastered the art of getting to the bus on time.
And every day, he jumps onto the bus, finds a seat, and rides to his bus stop.
Then, he gets off the bus and walks from the bus stop to his house.
Every day he does this.
School is scheduled for 180 days per year, so he rode the bus about 360 times during sixth and seventh grade. And it’s already November of eighth grade, so Shane has ridden the same bus approximately 400 times.
And yet, when he got onto the bus last week, the bus driver stopped him.
“You don’t ride this bus,” she said.
The bus driver didn’t recognize him.
Again.