To be perfectly honest, after three years of riding the bus, I still have yet to find even one good reason for doing it. My mother, perfectly capable and completely willing to pick me up after school, offers to take me constantly, but I always refuse her offer. I could easily get a friend to drive me home, and have, in fact, been offered a ride home many times already this year. If I was truly out of options, I could even walk the 20 minute car ride home, although it would take all day and I would prefer not to. But no — I insist, as I always have, that I like the bus ride.

I used to have legitimate reasons; “Oh no, I enjoy it,” I used to tell my mother. “I have plenty of things to do. I can do my homework, or listen to music or talk to my friends.” Why I said that, I don’t know. I do none of those things. The creaky bus makes too much noise among the music, yelling and the screeching of the bus itself, to write anything coherent or legible, so the possibility of me finishing up my geometry homework that was due yesterday is out. On top of that, my last pair of semi-functioning headphones were lost long ago to a borrower of a sort, so the idea of music is also negatory. That leaves my friends.
I find it hard to relate to the people I ride the bus with every day. For as much as we talk, I just cannot find it in me to understand them or their slightly less than normal thought processes, and I’m sure they think the same of me. But that doesn’t really matter. I do like them as people. It’s just the topics they discuss that I’m truly unable to converse with them about, like the pros and cons of not opening any doors for a day challenge. Actually, there weren’t any pros that I heard of, unless telling your teacher that the reason why you’re late to class happens to be because you couldn’t find a person to help you get inside.
I would have to say that the worst part about the abnormally bumpy bus is the strange noises it makes. I’ve ridden on many busses before: school busses, airport busses, etc. I know what a bus usually sounds like. But when your bus sounds like, as one bus rider puts it, a cardboard box tearing, it’s slightly concerning. It constantly makes loud, startling noises which gives the impression that the bus should not carry as many teenagers as it currently does. Another reason I don’t trust my bus is the day it fell into a ditch. Luckily, I wasn’t riding that day, but the receptionists called me down to the front office to speak to me about the event. Between the office’s description of it and the other rider’s various versions of the story, I have quickly lost faith in my mode of afternoon transportation.

I can’t be all negative about the bus. I do appreciate the fact that the underpaid driver not only drives us to our houses for free, but also puts up with us the entire time he does so. His facial expressions, displaying different degrees of horror as he listens to some of our conversations, often entertain me more than the conversations themselves.

So I still don’t have a logical reason for riding the safety hazard most students like to call the bus, and I doubt I ever will, but at least for now I think I’ll continue telling my mother that I have plenty to do on it and would like to continue riding it. I do enjoy spending time with the people who ride the bus with me, and maybe I’ll buy new headphones for the days I don’t feel like talking.