This was it. The moment I’d been dreading.
I had already completed the first stage of my CDL test, the Pre-Trip Inspection, in which I had to regurgitate a dozen or so pages of stuff about air brakes, cotter keys, bolt holes, and other previously foreign-to-me automotive terms.
Now, it was time for the Basic Control Skills Test, where I had to demonstrate my ability to maneuver the school bus around a series of orange cones. The first step was easy. All I had to do was back the bus in a straight line all the way through the cones.
Take it easy, I told myself, taking a deep breath. You got this.
I turned to look outside the bus at my examiner, Kevin, who was giving me the thumbs up to begin. Then I started the engine, put the bus in gear, released the emergency brake, and pressed down on the accelerator.
And the bus moved forward.
Oops.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kevin look down at his clipboard and shake his head. Quickly, I stepped on the brake, shifted into reverse, and began my way backward through the cones.
I shouldn’t have been so nervous. After all, I’d been training and practicing for weeks, and I felt confident in my ability to handle this forty-foot-long, twelve-ton vehicle. The day before, however, while practicing this very test, I panicked during the parallel-parking maneuver and, for the first time during my training, failed to complete it.
Fortunately, after this first little hiccup, I managed to calm my nerves and complete the other three steps of my CDL test—including parallel parking—without a problem. I successfully completed the simulated student discharge, two railroad crossings, and the thirty-minute on-road test.
I am now an officially licensed school bus driver!
I have to admit it, I never saw myself driving a school bus for a living. Then again, back in college, while studying the up-and-coming field of English Literature, I never would’ve seen myself as an:
Office supply store stock boy
Storm door “expert” at a home improvement store
Home appraisals administrator
Data entry specialist
Order entry specialist
Busboy
Outside sales rep
Administrative assistant
Radio commercial copywriter
Administrative assistant (again)
Pricing coordinator
Inside sales rep
PR and marketing writer for the local hospital
Freelancer (take one)
PR and marketing writer for a local university
Freelancer (take two)
Senior marketing writer for an environmental, health, and safety company
School van driver
If you’re counting, that’s eighteen different jobs. At least, the eighteen that I can remember. Now we can add “school bus driver” to the list.
Who knows? Maybe this’ll finally be the job that sticks. Then again, five years from now, I could be working as a pet food taster or a venomous snake milker.
We English Lit majors have to be versatile, you know. ~
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Valentine J. Brkich is the author of:
This particular one is not for the faint of heart, congratulations my friend!