Bus Duty Games

So I may have mentioned that I have bus duty every afternoon. I certainly don’t do it alone. . . We  have been called several things so far this year. One bus driver call us “Mrs. Dennis’ Minions.”  We are usually called the BB’s: either the Bus Brigade or the Bus Babes (we are mostly all females – OK, sometimes we call ourselves that. ).  I think someone has called us  something else that starts wit h a B, but we won't go there. We all work together really well and if everyone would just listen to us, we’d have that bus situation whipped into shape. 
BUT, we are not in charge of the world.  We can’t make anybody do anything we want them to. . . So, we spend a LOT of time together. There are moments of pure pandemonium and chaos, followed by periods of absolute boredom, while we sit and watch for buses to pull in.  So to combat the wait, we make up dumb games. We are not going to patent these or make board games but we make up stuff.  Here’s some of the stuff we do. 
1. We are always on the lookout for cars in the bus loop. Hardly a day goes by when at least one car completely ignores the sign that says “buses only” and pulls into the bus loop. Anybody listening to our radios nearly always hears “Car in the bus loop!!”  Today the car drove in completely the wrong direction, stopped and the driver said “I’m hear to pick up ______” and only said a first name.” There are so, so many things wrong with that I don’t even know where to begin.  A) YOU”RE IN THE BUS LOOP.  B)  You’re going the wrong way. C) There are 1940 students at our school – right off the top of my head, I’ve got no idea who  or where _____ is.  D) How do we know you ‘re allowed to pick up ______?  Do I need to go on?  I think not.
2.  We try to be the first one to spot the buses. We can see them on Highway 27 before they turn onto our road.  Sometimes, the ones we see aren’t our buses.  That’s heartbreaking when we see a bus and it never turns.
3. We play the guessing game with substitute buses.  Every day I get an email from my principal with bus changes. Today bus 847 rides bus 1682.  Those are not really our bus numbers, I’m just making stuff up.  So, we mark it down on our little bus sheet, get out to the bus loop, only to find that that information may or may not be correct – and the buses may or may not have the correct number on them. Last week one of our buses was a different number and the bus driver had a new hair do and she looked just like another one our buses. That was confusing. 
4. We measure how long it takes the bus to pull into the loop and how long it takes to load. One bus takes a long time, because we have to send the kids in groups, because they want to get home so quickly, they run over us. It takes them longer.
5. We make bets on which bus will be last.  We have one bus that is ridiculously late all the time – and it does two runs.  So if  you are really late for your first run, obviously your second run is going to take a while too. . . Apparently our game has rubbed off onto others.  We have one bus driver named Speedy  (obviously, that’s not really his name, but that’s what we call him. . . ) who now “races” another bus. Today he stopped on his last load to ask if the other bus had been back yet. When we said no, he gave us a thumbs up and drove off.
This isn’t a game, but it’s my favorite part. Our school is huge. We have a huge staff and huge number of students. While we wait, we talk to each other and to some of our students. And we get to really, really talk. . Sure, sometimes we have to stop and load a bus, but we finish later. 
Who knew bus duty could be (almost) fun???