This story is written with the hazy memory of a two? maybe three year old. So when I was a toddler I lived in a school bus for about a year I think. Any way I don’t remember much about the why we had to live in the school bus other than my childhood stories go from….. your brother was fucking around with the grill and sprayed a can of lighter fluid on the already lit fire and the house caught on fire……straight to…. remember when we had to live in the bus? I truly don’t know if the two are related but it is usually the way our stories go. So the school bus was no ordinary school bus it was set up like a camper. What I remember was there were bunkbeds because I was not allowed to sleep on the top bunk because I would fall out. There was a toaster because I burnt my leg on it and there was my little potty because I wet my pants. We lived at a place that we called the “camping area” and I remember that we had to walk through tall grass to get everywhere. Now whether or not the grass was really tall or the fact that I was really quite short I am not sure, but it’s my hazy memory so we are going to say that the grass was as tall as trees. At the camping area there were at times some men that looked like bikers and I remember being afraid of them. Whenever we had to walk anywhere I didn’t want to do the actual walking because of the unusually tall grass and the bikers and therefore (I am relying on the stories that were told, throughout my life, here rather than actual memory….but I know me and it plays out…so I’m certain it is accurate.) I would manipulate my family members into carrying me by twisting my feet inward to an unnatural position and say “I can’t walk because I am crippled!” (wasn’t I adorable…also crippled used to be the term and I was smart for my age not really politically correct…I am wiser now and now I would say “handicapable” or “lazy” also I would maybe get a scooter)

Now I remember going to “Our potato farm” in the middle of the night to collect our potatoes.(secret that toddlers don’t get…we didn’t own a potato farm) I also remember thinking at my age “why don’t we move our house/school bus here?” I remember that when mom tucked us into bed she would sing to us…all six of us children that lived on that school bus. I don’t know where my parents slept but maybe they slept in a tent or maybe in the driver’s seat. I never felt that living in a school bus was in some way weird. When I eventually had school friends I would tell them and they would all say that I was lying…well until I got older and then they would know my whole family and we all said the same thing (unhealthy need for others to validate my truths begin here)

When we did get a house my parents painted it (for some ungodly reason) school bus yellow. (perhaps they knew that we could always identify the camper and didn’t want to confuse us) Now that we were in the house we didn’t go camping much at all. (which is weird…because I still hate camping and it wasn’t until this very moment that I put these two things together.) One day my mother said that we were going to go check on the school bus. When we got there our school bus/house was vandalized….everything was destroyed. The most horrifying thing about the vandalization for me was my poor little potty (that I was clearly emotionally attached to) was torn apart. My poor potty. I loved that cute little potty with the seat that was the right size for me. (What I forgot to mention was that I hate my new indoor house potty..everyone’s butts touched it all of the time and the very worst is that I was an exceptionally small three year old. I had to climb onto that mountainous potty with the heavy lid and I had to grip onto the side and hope to hell that my puny arms didn’t lose strength this time…but they always did and I always fell in. I can still remember how cold that water was on my backside when I slipped. I remember how my weak body would fold up and the very top of my head and the very tips of my feet would be the only thing that would stick out. I would have to wriggle and struggle my way back out of that stupid deathtrap and I was always terrified that in all of my writhing that I WOULD ACCIDENTALLY HIT THE FLUSHER AND THAT WOULD BE THE END OF ME! I didn’t want to go out like that. I didn’t want to be the girl that flushed herself to death.) So when I saw that my beloved potty had been defiled and murdered I cried. I cried out loud with a horrible audible gurgle that sounded like “AAARRRGHHH NOT POTTY!” My brothers all looked at me, then potty and they laughed. They mocked me with this forever. “Remember when she cried over her potty?” Yes. Yes I do remember, I remember because it was that day when I realized that I was probably going flush myself down the stupid toilet. I was going to have to be strong and I was going to have to be extra careful and I was going piss me pants for a very long time afterward. It wasn’t a potty training thing it was a fear of flushing thing. No matter how embarrassed I was to be picked on for pissing my pants, I was not going to flush myself. This girl saw a problem and she avoided it the best she could. She pissed her pants because that was the answer!

Now back to the school bus. A few years later ( or maybe it seemed like that to me because after I tell this next story, you will see that I was clearly older and wiser) we brought the school bus to our house and parked it in the front yard. “Why yes, we were super cool and classy. It’s so nice of you to notice!” We had neighbors now and I played with them because I was popular and to prove it we all piled into the school bus one day. There were some boys and some girls and me. We all decided that we were going to play ‘if you show me your privates I will show you mine.” The boys were all super excited and they said you go first. I did with some of the other girls and then the boys said “Ok our turn.” I looked straight at them and said “No thanks, i’ve seen boys parts and they aren’t that impressive.” I pulled up my Tuesday panties probably on a Thursday, I pulled down my raggedy Ann skirt and I climbed out of the bus and went into my real home. I told my mother that the boys were trying to show us girls their “dingalings” and my mother ran outside and sent them all home. It wasn’t long after this that the school bus left forever. My mother wasn’t going to have that “sin-wagon” sitting out on her front lawn any longer.

So, yup, I lived in a school bus before it was a super hipster “convert a school bus into a tiny home” thing to do. But for all of you hipsters thinking this is still a good idea be forewarned…you may burn your leg on a toaster…go temporarily crippled or lose your beloved potty that will cause irrational fears of flushing deaths. If you are good with that, then be my guest, convert away.

until next time 🙂