Bus Drivers: The Butlers for the New Era

Back in the day, a butler had to be the most trusted of servants. A butler saw everything that happened in the house: the lady of the house in her nightclothes with no makeup on and her hair in curlers; guests quietly slipping from room to room in the middle of the night; letters from creditors and illicit lovers demanding (respectively) payments and rendez vous. They knew everything and told nothing. Their discretion was legendary.

You might think that there is no modern equivalent, but there is – at least for a certain demographic: parents of elementary school children. And that modern equivalent is…the school bus driver.

Like the butler before him (or her), the school bus driver is likely to see what we parents hide from the rest of the world. My kids’ bus driver regularly sees me with unbrushed teeth, an impressive case of bedhead, footwear ranging from slippers to sneakers without socks to bare feet, wearing whatever mismatched clean (or semi-clean) shirt and jeans are closest at hand, and almost invariably clutching a large mug of coffee as if it were a hand grenade with the pin removed. 

My typical "meeting the bus" outfit (the coffee mug is just offscreen).

Yet like the butler before him, he still nods politely at me and wishes me good morning as if I were dressed and coiffed for tea with the queen.

I love him.

Like the butler, the bus driver does not judge – or, if he does, he keeps his judgment silently to himself. He does not so much as raise an eyebrow if my daughter gets on the bus wearing a tutu and a tiara. He refrains from rolling his eyes when I come racing out of the house clutching a forgotten permission slip as he is pulling up to the curb (or pulling away from the curb). He smiles indulgently as my son breaks into a rousing chorus of Ed Sheeran’s “Shape of You,” merely requesting respectfully that he lower the volume a few notches. There is nothing that I or my children could do that would faze this amazingly unflappable human being.

I sometimes wonder, in the case of both butlers and bus drivers, if their unflappability is an innate trait that led them into this particular occupation, or whether it is a skill developed with their years of experience in said occupation. I’ve never had a butler, but I’ve certainly had my share of bus drivers, and it seems to me that it must be a combination of the two. I’m not ashamed to say that if I had to drive a bus full of elementary school children, I’d run away screaming within the first week. It takes a certain laid back personality to take on the job to begin with. But at the same time, the calmest and most unflappable bus drivers I’ve ever known have been those who’ve been in the business for a long time and who’ve seen it all. I imagine that for every time an experienced driver sees a mom wearing slippers, he’s seen one still in her pajamas. I imagine that for every child wearing a wacky outfit, he’s seen one wearing an even wackier outfit. I imagine that for every parent who’s raced out to deliver a permission slip, he’s seen one delivering a backpack or a bag lunch or a pair of shoes or a paper mache diorama of the French revolution. An experienced bus driver has seen all there is to see and lived to tell the tale.

Speaking of telling the tale, I also have to wonder whether any of these discreet drivers may someday succumb to the siren’s call of a book deal. Like Princess Diana’s butler, a bus driver has a treasure trove of juicy gossip that could have the public tittering with glee. I just hope it’s not my bus driver. Or if it is, I just hope that the photo on the cover catches me wearing my good slippers…