THIS BUS HAS BEEN CHECKED FOR SLEEPING CHILDREN

A few years ago there was a big story in the news about a lost child. It turned out she fell asleep on the school bus and the driver never saw her. The kid woke up hours later in the back of a school bus, in the dark, in front of the driver's house. Then other stories came out of the woodwork and it seemed like this was happening more often than people knew. (To be honest, it may have been a boy, not a girl...I really have no idea, but the point is still valid.)

To combat this problem of bus driver laziness, a policy was instituted: The driver must, at the end of his/her shift, walk to the back of the bus and place a sign on the rear window that reads: "This Bus Has Been Checked For Sleeping Children." Then, in the morning, the driver is supposed to walk to the back of the bus, get the sign and bring it back to the front of the bus.

Whenever I see this sign on a bus, I take a look inside. If there are kids inside, I immediately get on my cell phone and call the bus company. The first time I did thsi, the operater laughed it off: "Haha, oh he probably just forgot..." I angrily protested that that defeats the entire point of the sign.

Personally, when I see the sign on a full bus, I take it as a personal insult. Like the driver is taunting me by showing me two conflicting pieces of information and daring me to say something about it. I've called bus companies 3 or 4 times so far, but this mornings' sighting is the first since I started blogging, so you get to hear all about it.

I saw the sign, saw the kids, saw the phone number on the bus, saw the bus number and called. I had to leave a message, but I made sure I left a strong one, ending it with, "God help you if you ever leave my kid asleep on your bus."

Anyway, I strongly urge all of you to call the bus companies that have this problem whenever you see it. They will want to know the number or license plate of the bus, and where the bus is (i.e. Bus #4322, on Sunrise Highway in Babylon, heading West). I know several parents get involved after their kid has been affected, but dammit, I want to get involved BEFORE my kid is affected and try to make sure it never happens. Please help.

MY CRAZY NEIGHBORS

When we first moved into our house, we had no idea our neighbors were crazy. Then, one summer day, before we actually were moved in, we were painting the living room with the windows open. All of a sudden we heard roosters crowing. We froze and tried to follow the sound. It came from across the street. It turned out they had two roosters, at least 6 hens, two horses and two barky dogs. According to the town, they had every right to have noisy animals and we had to just live with it. Sometimes the chickens woke us up at 4:30 in the morning. It was just awful.

My next door neighbor was a single woman. We had no problems with her...just her damn dog. She had a big barky dog which apparently lived in the driveway behind a fence. It rarely got out, but it barked constantly and liked to bang into their metal shed, creating a sound akin to: "ROOF ROOF ROOF.....CRASSSHHH ROOF ROOF ROOF CRASSSSHHHH!" This went on throughout the day. One day I heard the dog barking and saw it was pouring rain outside. I went next door to tell the lady the dog was sitting out in the rain and she assured me, "Oh, don't worry, he's fine." I called the ASPCA to tell them this dog was left outside all day, in the sun, in the snow, in the rain, and the driveway was covered in piles of poop. They pretty much told me they couldn't do anything.

Then one day, someone else was next door. A Hispanic family. I gingerly approached them and asked, "Uh...do you live here now?" Indeed they did and had been there for a month. Who knew? We got along well with the new neighbors. Not really friends, but we'd wave and chat briefly outside. Their son cut our lawn. After about two years, another neighbor approached me about cutting my lawn. He told me the boy next door moved away. Again, our next-door neighbor snuck out on us.

The house has been empty now for two months. The guy came back today and told me he'd thought he sold it, but the guy who was gonna buy it had bank troubles at the last minute and the deal fell through. The family had left all their furniture in the house, planning on buying new furniture with the proceeds from the sell. Since it never happened, he's now paying two mortgages and has no furniture. Poor guy.

About a year ago, we stopped hearing the chickens from across the street. Neither of us wanted to acknowledge this to each other for fear of jinxing it. The subject was finally brought to the surface this week when we discovered something new to hate: a big, scary statue. The chicken-family now have a six-foot brown statue of a tormented naked man-like creature with gigantic hands. We think it's the work of the grown son. It's not horrible as far as art goes, but damn I don't want it on their lawn! To be fair, we can't see it from our house and it's far back on their property, but it's so damn disturbing and eye-catching! Click HERE to see a quick movie of the creature in question.