*I Wonder Why?* Wednesday

Here's an *I Wonder Why?* from last Wednesday. I think I was so stunned that I just couldn't put it into words at the time.


I wonder why......






my almost 17year old daughter is standing behind me




in the grocery store




when she should be on the school bus




on her way home.




Actually, I wonder why wasn't really my first thought.



It was more of a What the hell are you doing here?!?! kind of moment


followed by a What the hell was the bus driver thinking?!?! kind of moment.



I was literally speechless, probably because my jaw was on the floor, and it took a few moments before I'd regained my ability to speak and then ohhhh baby did she get an ear full.....and then her father took her to the van and she continued to get an ear full while I finished picking up a few groceries.

From what I was able to piece together, one of the girls on her bus works at the grocery store and the bus driver was dropping her off at the store. My daughter, convinced that she saw our van in the parking lot and that we were in the store shopping, decided she was going to get off the bus too. Now technically, since she found us in the store, she wasn't wrong in her assumption that we were there BUT considering there are at least 3 steel blue/grey Uplander vans in town (I know because I've almost climbed into at least one of them by mistake) it could have easily not been our van she'd seen in the parking lot.

Her quick thinking brother, armed with his new cell phone sent me a text message asking where I was and I assured him that I was indeed at the store and in the company of his sister and that I was NOT happy with his sister OR the bus driver and thanked him for checking in with me about the situation. At least he realized there was a problem with the whole deal. The bus driver sure as heck didn't.

I was and actually still am quite floored.

Whatever possessed the bus driver to allow our daughter, our 17yr old with the critical thinking skills of a 6 yr old to get off the bus. I'm not one for labels and such but come on! The term "Special Needs Child" has to count for something and in my world it means at all times someone responsible must be watching out for my daughter because she is in many ways incapable of being responsible for herself. And the bus driver KNOWS this! She's 'pulled the wool over his eyes' once before when he first became our driver like two years ago. He knows not to believe her.....and yet he let her get off that bus.

When she was asked what she would have done if we hadn't been at the store she didn't have a clue. What-If questions are way too abstract. She eventually came up with a couple not completely wrong answers but definately not the correct response in that situation. Her ideas involved walking about a mile either in one direction or another to either of her grandparents' houses on the off chance that someone would be home and in all likelihood she would have either become lost along the way or more believable she would have been sidetracked and become totally lost. Never did she consider asking to use the telephone at the store or asking any of the dozen or more people that she knows who work there for help.

AND......she is completely oblivious to the fact that she did anything wrong.


And a week later......I'm still floored!



~K