The Butterfly Effect

I just walked in the door from one of the biggest ClusterFs ever!

Ok, so if you've been keeping up with the story, you know that Playette now must be dropped off in the afternoon at the front of our neighborhood, on the closest city-maintained road.

I swear, in the last few days, I have learned more about what the colors of your street signs mean and renegade condo association law and public school transportation for children with special needs than I ever wanted to know.

Today? It was gorgeous out. Loved walking out there to get my girl. In fact, I told the driver that if every day were like this one (They are not. Tuesday, it was cold and rainy and I cursed all of the parties involved as I drove to that same main road.) that I might just enjoy this little change of plans we've had thrust upon us.

I still drive her to school on principle though. That whole "joke" thing? Screw them and their morning bus. I have since called the head of both Transportation and Special Ed Transportation (gag) and given them the business. I'm not finished either.

This whole bus thing won't last must longer anyway, but that's a whole 'nother story to be elaborated on at another time.

Anyway, so as the aide is getting Playette out of her 5-point seat straps and then chasing her down after she ran directly to the back of the bus, and I'm talking to the driver while we wait, I start to hear some commotion.

I'm going to try to keep this insanity brief, ok?

Let's see.

I just went to Paint and tried to make you all a diagram, but it sucked. You may need to break out your own napkin or something.

So there's this lady, A, and she's sitting behind a guy at the stop sign, B. Man C is stopped on the road, facing the bus.

A honked her horn. I would learn directly from her later that she had been waiting 3 whole minutes for Playette to be unloaded from the bus. She admitted to being very impatient since all that was going on was a little chat between the driver and I, or so she thought.

B started driving after the honk. He's maybe in his 70s? I only mention his age because it kinda matters in a bit.

C immediately darts to block B from proceeding past the bus.

And then this is where I start to notice something is up. Because I'm on the side of the bus closest to the curb, I couldn't see how the how thing started.

C begins to should at B. "YOU'RE BREAKING THE LAW!! THERE ARE KIDS ON THIS BUS!" amidst some colorful expletives.

Because, you know, the lights were flashing, the stop sign was extended. All that good school bus stuff.

But then...oh, lord...then C takes his left hand, balls it up, and punches B's windshield. It cracked.

B is very rattled and gets out of his van.

A starts yelling at C. C holds firm to his reason for coming at B the way he did.

B starts saying that he's going to get C's license plate number and have him arrested.

Not too difficult since C isn't going anywhere. He really believes he is in the right. C wants B arrested.

Whoa.

A then drives over to me, to get my name and phone number as a witness. It's at this point that she tells me exactly what happened and I jump at the opportunity to inform her that my daughter is riding an accessible bus and, well, sometimes that takes longer than 30 seconds to disembark.

A's face changed. She felt like an ass. Mission accomplished.

I then told her that up until a couple of days ago, my daughter was dropped off in front of our house. Not anymore though. So now everyone is just gonna have to wait it out whenever she's getting off the bus.

So there. Neener neener and nanny nanny boo boo.

Playette just keeps pointing at the bus. "Bus! Bus! Bus!"

They all. keep. yelling.

C does this whole Citizen's Detainment type thing and demands that the bus driver stay put. The aide gets off the bus and comes over to me. We are in awe of this whole situation. Traffic is backed up in both directions. I can hear people making up their own versions of the events already.

"B hit his head on the windshield! He's hurt!"

"C took B out of the car and beat him up!"

Messy, messy.

A neighbor comes up and asks me what happened. I tell her, adding in that this never would have happened a week ago. Because I'm that kind of an opportunist.

She asked me if the vans that carry people to the Senior Center would have to do so at the main road, too. Hm. Well, of course not! She seemed happy to know that. Toddlers, ok. Seniors, no.

Then C's wife drove up and started talking to me. I felt bad for her. She had nothing to do with this, but she was certainly going to have to deal with the consequences.

I felt bad for them all, really. Even A who admitted that she was the catalyst.

B made a mistake and now had a broken windshield.

C started out well, but his good intentions got buried in shards of glass. That was not his best decision.

What. A. Mess.

But, you know, my life doesn't stop because people are stupid. I needed to get home because I was expecting a social worker and a nurse to come evaluate my child and my life because we're cool like that.

So we walked home and left the circus behind.

I snapped this first though:


When those ladies arrived about 30 minutes later, they said that the police had arrived on the scene.

In the words of my neighbor, "This one will be in the newsletter."

I sure hope so.

I'll let you all know if I learn about any more details.

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I wrote this post yesterday, but I thought that the
7 Day Blitz for Kirill (though Monday, April 11th) should take precedence.