I haven't been very dedicated to using labels, but I decided to start a new one for Mega Meltdowns. These may be meltdowns I've experienced or witnessed. Since I'll have plenty of my own to relate, I think I'll start by sharing one I witnessed.
When I was in 5th grade, we had the BEST bus driver named Jack. He brought us fireballs on Fridays and rarely raised his voice to us. He was kind and elderly, and I think I cried the day he retired. This is NOT a story about Jack.
We had another bus driver when I was in 3rd grade. I think her name was Cory. She wasn't awful at first, but then she snapped. I think we were all in the middle of singing a lovely song called, "I Know a Song That Gets on Everybody's Nerves" when she lost it. Not exactly good behavior on our part, but I don't think it warranted the reaction we got.
She pulled the bus over to the side of the road, got off, then proceeded to bash her head against a tree. I'm not kidding. My brother and I still try to pick out which tree when we pass that spot. She also muttered a horrible string of obscenities while continuing to bang her head. Did I mention my poor little brother was only in kindergarten?
Cory got back on the bus and obviously we stared at her in stony, horrified silence. She screamed at us saying, "If you don't sit down and shut up, I will ram this bus up the curb and kill us all! Don't think I don't know how to do it!"
As if the tree scene wasn't terrible enough, she was now threatening to kill us. Please keep in mind that elementary school kids couldn't really understand that driving a bus up a curb going 30 mph at most wasn't going to kill anybody; we took her threat seriously. As you can imagine, we were quiet the entire drive home. We quietly filed off the bus at our stop. Waited until the bus was out of site. Then bolted home to cry to our mommy. I'm pretty sure that's the same thing every other kid did, meaning the school district got about 40+ complaints from irate (times infinity) mothers about the maniac bus driver.
As an adult I realize that poor Cory must've had some terrible demons she was fighting. I hope that she's won that battle by now. And I will say this. At the time we were all pretty scared, but I don't think it actually scarred me for life. Plus, it makes for a pretty crazy story. So, no hard feelings.
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