On the Bus, No One Can Hear You Scream

The latest bit of news that really fries my fishsticks is this story about some adolescents in upstate New York cruelly antagonizing their elderly bus driver.  The taunts went way beyond teasing--at one point one of the little bastards made a comment that the woman's kid should kill himself (and her son actually had committed suicide, it turns out), and another commented that he'd stab her but her lard would be like cutting through butter. 

The video went viral, and through some Internet fundraising sympathetic people have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for this woman to take a vacation, and that's all well and good.  The problem I think I have with this is that no one has raised any money to hire a violent ex-con to get on board that bus and whip the everloving crap out of these little sh*tstains until they learn some manners.

I remember as a kid being on a relatively rowdy (for our school) bus route--one driver actually stopped the bus to tell us we were "the worst behaved route" and that "all the other drivers had to draw straws to see who would have to take this route."  At that point, we said something like "we want Randy back!" (Randy was the cool driver who didn't seem to mind our hijinks and pratfalls, such as letting off stink bombs and tossing things out windows and the running battle royale that took place in the back)  She responded: "Let me tell you something about Randy.  He's an irresponsible drug addict!"  We didn't really know what to say about that--our Randy?  The bearded, mulleted dude who always seemed cool as a cucumber?  It never occurred to us that he could have sold us pot.

But despite our misbehavior, I don't recall any outright cruelty towards a driver.  These kids on the other hand crossed the line, and their parents have the absolute sacred duty to smack the piss out of them.