Emily Armstrong

Two friends and I were biking around our neighborhood (lost creek) one evening when a school bus pulled up to a stop sign. Something didn’t make sense as it was about six thirty PM and bass was pulsing from the bus. Naturally we followed the bus on our bikes and found it parked at a house down the hill.

Now it wasn’t too often that you find a school bus that plays rap music driving around at dusk, so we decided to knock on the door and ask to see the ride. Two guys answered and gave us a tour of the bus.

Then one of the guys had an epiphany. He realized that project graduation was happening that night at westlake high school, and that we should get in line with the other buses to drop off some middle schoolers. My buddies and I then volunteered to get off of the bus in our underwear for comedic effect.

So it was decided that my two friends and I would crash project graduation in our underwear in a retrofitted schoolbus driven by two random guys from our neighborhood.

We got to project graduation and managed to get last in line with the buses that were dropping off high schoolers for their graduation party. When we pulled up and got off of the bus we where greeted by three volunteer moms who voraciously shooed us back on to the bus. Surprisingly, they didn’t seem phased by the whole situation, as if the were used to seeing mischief of this caliber and the bar had been raised before us.

Since we where already driving around, we decided to take the bus to sixth street for some ghostriding. That was back in 2001 so I’m not even sure if ghostriding had gotten mainstream at that point. (Does anyone know the history of ghostriding?)

We where turning from 360 onto mopac en route to sixth, when…

Bang!

we heard a loud noise and the bus jostled a little bit. I thought we had hit one of those roadside electrical boxes or run over a curb. We pulled the bus over and discovered a red Chevy Tracker behind us. Somehow this guy had rear ended us and crashed his chevy. It’s front grille and headlights where crushed beyond recognition.

When we checked the bumper of the bus for damage, it was completely unscathed. That’s right, not a dent, scratch, or blemish. After talking with the driver we agreed to forgo the insurance and go our separate ways. Impressed by the indestructibility of our school bus we headed up mopac to sixth street.

Now sixth street is pretty cool, right? Now imagine how cool it was for three kids, on a pimped out school bus, who weren’t old enough to drive, let alone party on sixth street.

We were dancing out the windows, bumping the music, and bringing people on board, epitomizing the slogan “keep austin wierd”.

The whole experience gave me a good deal of faith in serendipity.

I’m not sure if you were one of the two guys or not, I’m looking forward to more entries on the bus adventures.

Cheers,
Brian

P.S. Give Stephen a call and ask him about new employees. I know he likes working with entrepreneurial minds, Check out my site at http://www.souleblog.com.

P.P.S. I just shot one of my friends who lived in Tokyo for two years a message. I’ll let you know if she knows of any cool places to live.

Tynan

Nice job guys, must have been great fun.