Friday, October 24, 2008

RIP: Yellow Bus of Drunken Shenanigans

Back on St. Patrick's Day in 2007, a group of dedicated friends with serious drinking problems put all their money together and rented a yellow school bus to transport them on a fantastic voyage around Omaha. Some blacked out. Some flashed devil horns in every picture taken of them, as they tend to do when their blood alcohol increases. One person even tossed cookies on my neighbor's lawn and then got in his car and drove home. It was a night that we'll never remember.

Since that time, renting a school bus to transport your drunken friends around town isn't quite as punk rock as a it used to be. Every Thomas, Richard and Harold with two c-notes and a previous DUI conviction that makes them extra leery about driving around after drinking has been taking advantage of the yellow school bus. Just like anything else that is exceptionally popular, assholes have ruined it for everyone.

According to the Omaha World Herald, the newspaper with the worst website ever, both school bus companies who had been renting their buses for "adult party time" are no longer providing the service because of pressure from law enforcement and concerns for liability. I thought it was particularly interesting that the article points out that "Partygoers (were) urinating and vomiting in front of businesses", because as I pointed out earlier that happened on our bar crawl. While I've done a lot of stupid things while drinking, including posting to this blog, who throws garbage out of the window of a school bus as an adult? You're riding in a giant yellow bus, specifically designed to stick out like intelligent people at a GOP campaign rally. Did you really think the police that follow these buses around wouldn't notice?

Obviously, the police did notice and while they were more than willing to turn their heads when it was just a group of idiots drinking on the bus, the minute debris starts flying from the bus, police are less likely to ignore it. Although the article states that First Student, one of the companies who had previously provided buses for these types of activities, is considering starting them again, the article makes it pretty clear that drinking on the bus will not be acceptable. We'll miss you drunken school bus! Thanks for letting us get drunk enough that we were unable to form memories.

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