Hey, Lady

At Christmas I decided to give a few people who don't make a lot of money big tips, instead of giving a lot of my friends who are getting by well enough more gifts they don't need. One person I figured deserved some money was my son's bus driver. I count on him to be there and get my son safely to school and with my schedule if he weren't there, I'd be late to work all the time and my whole day would be a mess, so I really appreciate what he does. He's a bit of a curmudgeon though and rather cranky with me and my son now and then, because we're often dashing down the sidewalk to make the bus and nearly miss it about 3 mornings out of 5 and probably throw off his schedule.

On the last morning before Christmas vacation, I put $50 in a christmas card with the message "Thanks for all your hard work," written on it and put it in an envelope and sealed it and stuffed it in my pocket and ran off to the bus stop with my cute 2nd grader. We weren't even late. I was excited about the envelope in my pocket and figured no one else was giving him much of anything that day and he would really appreciate it.

He pulled up and didn't look very happy, despite it being nearly Christmas. "Hey, Lady," he started, as my son got in cautiously, "your kid is nothing but trouble in my bus. He won't sit down, he won't listen to me, he's constantly jumping around ..." he goes on and on, really giving me hell in front of the kids and other parents at the bus stop. In my pocket, I'm picking at one corner of the envelope, thinking twice about giving it to him, even thinking twice about taking the thing out of my pocket. Finally he's done and about to close the folding doors on me as I step up into his bus and stand on the first step.

I hand him the envelope and say "I'm sorry, I'll talk to my son, but here, Merry Christmas," I say. I exit quickly. I can tell from his face he's thinking, "great, another lousy christmas card I don't need."

The bus pulls away and I start walking back to my house. And I start grinning, because I realize when he finally opens the envelope he is going to be just dying to realize he'd balled me out and I'd taken it and I still gave him the card and the money. And then I started laughing out loud, wishing I could be there when he opens it.

Two weeks later on the first day back to school, the bus pulls up and there was one very appreciative bus driver there to greet my son and thank me and his sheepish look was worth so much more than the fifty bucks.