To the average person, it’s just a big yellow bus safely transporting the youth of America to and from school.  But to a high school senior, this particular vehicle has a sinister presence, an evil that pervades its very being.

Unlike freshman and sophomore year, when riding the bus is simply another part of the school day for most, upperclassmen see the bus as a plague, one to be avoided at all costs.

“The bus is just god awful,” summed up Charlotte Smith ’12.

Then why do upperclassmen take the bus?

This situation arises from many different circumstances: late birthdays, license delays, lack of a car, etc.  Some may even take the bus in an effort to be environmentally conscious.  But when talk of upperclassmen forced to ride the bus stirs up so many passionate emotions and ends up more of a therapy session, one thing becomes clear:  pleasure is not one of the reasons that upperclassmen take the bus.

Asking an upperclassman “why don’t you take the bus anymore?” is roughly akin to showing a bull the red cape.

The reasons for this loathing begin with who they share the daily journey with.

“The absolute worst part about riding the bus as a senior is the annoying underclassmen, “ said Smith.

“There was this group of sophomores that flirted with each other really loudly, and it made me want to kill them all.”

Heather Rosoff ’12 echoed Smith’s sentiment.   “I was a few episodes behind on American Idol, about to catch up, and these obnoxious underclassmen spoiled the ending for me,” she said.

For many, the bus just adds hassle and stress to the hardest part of any teenager’s day:  seven in the morning.

Smith’s bus, normally scheduled for a 7:12 a.m. pickup, has come as early as 6:55 and as late as 7:25.  Throw a 4-minute walk up her long private driveway and down the street into the mix, and she’s got the recipe for a terrible start to her day.

Vicky Watterworth, a mother of three Staples graduates, has used the horrors of the bus to her advantage –the threat of the “loser cruiser” became a powerful disciplinary tool.    When she caught one of her sons driving a friend illegally, making him ride the bus was the best sanction to get her point across.

“It’s just demoralizing to be on the bus for a senior,” she said. “They just sit there silently with their earphones on like it’s a train. It’s so depressing.”

On paper, the bus experience for upperclassmen does not differ in the slightest to the experience of their first two years.

Once junior year rolls around, all of the sudden the inconveniences of the bus – standing outside in the freezing cold and rain, getting up 15 minutes earlier, trying to listen to your iPod over the incessant chatter of underclassman – morph into one big pain that grows with each passing day.  Like a nagging best friend, the annoyances will slowly grind away at nerves over time.

And when their classmates blow by the bus stop in their own licensed vehicles with the stereo blasting, the shivering upperclassmen can only hope that their days on the “loser cruiser” are numbered.

Inklinations: What is your craziest bus story?

“These kids threw an open bottle of orange juice and a carton of munchkins out of the bus window and into a Porsche with the top down” -Noel Sosnoski ’15

“I hit the bus with rocks after it dropped me at my bus stop.” -Jack Baylis ’15

“I was a bus bully. I used to pluck peoples’ hairs out one by one. I was sent to the principal’s office.” -Sami Schwaeber ’12