Alternative things to do with a school bus

If you are ever in a social gathering and an awkward silence falls over the group, may I suggest a topic of discussion?

Say: "Have you heard that there are people in Montpelier, Idaho that are buying school buses, filling them with food storage and then burying them in their backyards?"

Believe me—the possibilities are endless with that prompt. I know, because I've participated in that very discussion. And it made for hours (hours!) of good fun.

A. You could talk about why a school bus is the chosen method for safeguarding the food storage.
B. Why not a big metal bin? Or why not a hatch like on Lost? Why not a Boeing 747? Why a school bus??
C. You could talk about their reasoning behind burying it.
D. You could speculate on whether they have a plan in place to keep said food storage from going bad.
E. You could speculate on methods for getting that large of an object underground.
F. You could speculate on how they would get the school bus above ground once the time comes to dip in to said food storage.
G. You could talk about all of the above or none of the above because you've already thought of a dozen other questions that aren't on this list.

You get the idea. Hours of good fun.

Thomas' mother happens to have a gold mine of some of the most colorful, bizarre, and supposedly non-fiction stories I have ever heard. See, she knows everybody. And, well, when you know everybody you're bound to pick up a lot of good stories along the way. She probably knows you. And if she doesn't know you, she probably knows your mother or your father or perhaps your mother's room mate from college or your father's coworker from his first job at the grocery store.

Anyway, I say supposedly non-fiction because sometimes I just can't get my head around some of the wild stories that she can pull out of her sleeve at a moment's notice. Like what, you ask? Oh, like how people in Montpelier, ID are buying school buses specifically to stock with food storage and bury in their backyard. It's especially hard (blame it on my journalism degree) when such a story is prefaced with how she heard it from so-and-so who heard it from what's-his-bucket. (Which, P.S., Marilyn—I'm still waiting for you to fill in the details to those—shall we say—"holes" from that story about the man who discovered he was switched at birth...)

I totally want to believe though. (Cue—X-Files music) I mean, this is just too good. So this is where I make my plea to the universe that if there is ANYONE out there who has purchased a school bus, filled it with food and buried it, I beg, PLEASE LET ME KNOW because I may have one or two or a million questions for you.

Really, I'm just glad that once you-know-what hits the fan—that Tom and I have some strong connections to Montpelier.

I took this from here.

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Let's just consider this a little teaser to my Meet the Fam part II post. Coming tomorrow.