The Beginning of The Bus

I was 30 when my younger sister created The Bus of Doom for me. A naive at dating (I had been married since I was very young and only recently divorced) I was not good at understanding or coping with this new realitty of short term relationships, often (mostly) with selfish, sex driven jerks. I had difficulty letting go of these guys and my sister got fed up. Pulling out the crayons she quickly whipped up a picture of a flaming yellow bus with clearly dead and dying occupants. "This" she explained "Is the Bus of Doom. It is a bus on its way to the ex-boyfriend convention. All your ex-boyfriends are on it. On the way to the convention the Bus of Doom is destroyed in a firey crash." Scrawling words at the bottom of the picture she added "Sadly, there were NO survivors. Now write the passenger list on the back. If you see any of these men again you know they are just ghosts. You can't go out with them again because they did NOT survive the Bus. Got it?"

From that day on The Bus of Doom became a profound symbol for myself, my other sisters and later my girlfriends and their friends, of the end of a relationship. It also provided an endless source of humour as we reflected on the list of passengers and what they had done to earn their ride on The Bus. My passenger list being the first, and apparently the worst! I have been asked to write about my experiences as a failed 30 something romantic with terrible taste in men, so here it is...The Bus of Doom...I hope if any of your ex-( or current) boyfriends sound like these guys you will consider putting them on The Bus too.