*This rant is purely comical and is not criticizing any sole individual or creed. The article is written in an informal style to simulate the behavior of a rant, and the criticized individual is male for no reason, thanks for reading*

Oh, the woes a student suffers when the bus rolls down the street, its brakes squeaking in the distance as you run out your door in a late hurry. Gone are the days when the bus driver would look out his window, note that you’re not there on time and speed away. Now at your expense, we sit with the door open, the cold air seeping in, testing our morning civility as we plan a grand mutiny against your irresponsibility.

There is always that kid who ignores the fact that most want to reach school at a manageable time and acts as though the world revolves around him. With over 30 people on the bus, 20 needing to be picked up, and 7,000,000,000 people on this planet, the world clearly doesn’t spin to your delight. He steps out of his door, slowly turning the handle, slowly closing the door, slowly grabbing his bag, and slowly looking to the waiting bus as it loses the little heat it had. Then, much to the irritation of the students chilled to the bone on the bus, he creeps down his driveway, taking note of the birds high in the trees and waving at the passing cars. When his feet finally reach the steps, he takes the time a normal kid would take to get to his/her seat, and uses it to stare down the seats, several open, others filled with ticked adolescents. His arms stretched wide, they pang each time he knocks the seats as he analyzes each face he passes. Instead of sitting in the front or middle, he makes his way to the back, which is at its max capacity, and proceeds to bicker with the students nearly stacked on top of each other for not giving him some room. This is just the start of a 45-minute route full of the horror and indecency that is omnipresent in a modern school bus ride.

Avoiding the external cons of bus travel, such as uncontrollable time of pickup/arrival and the recklessness of the bus driver, the commute would be tolerable without other students mucking it up. The majority of bus-riding teenagers either listen to music or sit quietly, viewing the somber countryside fade away into the turmoil of modern urbanization. Beside freshmen, who from day one to finish clearly have no idea how to act with their developing minds, the impact of such solitude is constant and results in most to conform. But, for those freshmen who don’t understand the concepts of rest, quiet, and calm, they become the bane of peaceful traveling via bus. A sensible, well-rounded human being would acknowledge the presence of the social serenity at work and aspire to join, and yet, new-comers act as a wildfire to the admittedly over-populated forest of riders. This pushes the older, more flammable students off the bus, resulting in a fresh growth for the upcoming school year. These facilitated burns would be effective if they were controlled, but each year they grow crazier, less stable, and more destructive.

To be more specific, let us discuss the obnoxious and disrespectful selfie-taking in the morning. If the sun were up and the bus lit by natural light, taking a snap chat would be fine to me, but if it’s essentially night, don’t, just do not. Why on earth do you have to take a perfect selfie to send a message to a pal at 6:30 am? Are you really that vain that you think your friends should wake up to a beautiful picture of you otherwise they’ll have a horrible day? What does the message say as well? “Hello” or “Good Morning”? How hard is it to take a picture of the darkness and say that, instead of having a photo shoot on the bus, with the freaking flash on. Yes, other students see the flash, and unlike you, it’s not something to light their face up, it’s a lightning bolt that shocks you deep in your soul. One flash, eh, two flashes, I’m going to whip your phone out the window.

Back to that beautiful social serenity, I was talking about earlier, the bus is usually a peaceful zone. One may whisper to another, and others may have quiet conversations, fine by me as long as it’s not too loud that I can hear it over my music. Most students respect this universal calm, and I salute you respectable peers, but once again, that one kid who can’t contain himself ruins everything. I may find myself listening to “Time” by Hans Zimmer, all happy and inspired, then be ripped back into reality by the kid screaming, “are we there yet?!”. Of all the stupid questions to ask, those four words go beyond idiocracy, and it proves that you need to have the attention, good or bad, focused on yourself.

These common problems that run amock on the bus are just a few of a long list of annoyances that a modern student must face. Sadly, these aspects taint the bus experience and destroy the calm of waking up. Whether you have dealt with these fires first hand or are just learning of the damage they can do, please know that uncontrolled burning is bad and serious, and you may be the only one to put them out.

Thank you for reading, Joel Freecheck.

Endnote: This was on the various aspects of the school environment and how students behave wrongly around the author. The rant is focused on the BHS student populace and not against a sole individual or creed. Please also understand that the rant is made on the assumption that Blaine High School and the bus provider are not the subject of the rant, just the setting.

OTHER STUDENT THOUGHTS