BoB at the Beach
Once again, the kids were climbing onto a bus. They were on their class trip to the beach. This time it was a tour bus of BosticTours, inc. Ken Bostic was sticking his nose in anywhere he could make money. After sitting on the bus a while, the kids started getting restless.
"Where's the driver and the chaperones?" they asked. Just then a loud, ugly red car drove up with duct tape holding on the doors. The side said BosticTours on it and they figured it was the driver. The door opened and BoB stepped out.
"Hooray!" the kids cheered. BoB was so surprised he dropped his cigarette and it landed on his shoe. It burst into flames. "Kick it at the school!" Brad shouted, hoping it would burn down. But BoB scraped it on the pavement to get it off.
"You darn kids keep gettin' me in trouble!" BoB said, waving the putrid smoke from the flaming shoe away from his face. "But I guess I've become kinda attached to ya' ". He stomped on the shoe and put it out.
"Quick, let's leave before the chaperones get here!" Derek suggested. BoB agreed.
"We can have a lot more fun without 'em", BoB said. He got his bags and shut the door to the car. It fell off on the pavement. BoB was swearing and trying to get the door back on. He gave up and threw it in the trunk, the door of which also came off.
"Stupid piece of junk!!!" he screamed. The kids were laughing hysterically. BoB kicked the car and the bumper fell off. The car began to roll downhill. He swore again and gave it an extra push, and it rolled down into the woods. BoB puffed hard on his next cigarette.
BoB was still grumbling when he got on the bus. "Well, let's get going." They pulled out of the school parking lot and on to the highway. BoB got up to his standard 12 mph.
After a while BoB turned on the TV's. It was the news and Ken Bostic was talking about the beach weather.
"It will be sunny and warm all weekend! Great weather for me to take my annual Golf trip to the beach! You know, that reminds me of that time back in--" The newscasters cut him off. "Thanks Ken", said Darcel, rolling her eyes. "We'll be right back after this commercial break" she said. They forgot to cut Ken's microphone off and the kids heard him say how much he hated the weather before they realized it.
"What a moron!" Suzie laughed. "BoB, change the channel."
"It won't change!" he said. "They must want us to watch as much Ken Bostic as possible, since he owns this tour company."
"By the way, BoB, how did you get a job at BosticTours?" Maria asked.
"Easy. After the baking soda factory blew up and I got laid off, I went to the unemployment office. They said that was the only place that would hire me. They didn't even ask for my drivers license! I got the job immediately. They said a school needed a driver, and fast."
"I'm glad you got the job", she said.
At about 6:30 that day they pulled into the hotel parking lot.
"10 hours 3 minutes! My new record!" BoB said proudly.
"BoB, you idiot, we could've been here in 2 hours! You drove so slow and stopped to smoke so many cigarettes we could've walked here faster!" Sue shouted.
"Well at least we're here, and with the best bus driver!" Daniel said. BoB got off to smoke a cigarette. Phil had one too.
They ate and checked into their rooms.
Late that night, Sue and Maria heard strange noises in the hall. It was BoB! He was riding the elevator up and down. "What a wierdo!" they said, and went back to bed.
The next morning they were waken up by a fire alarm. Everyone was running for the door when BoB stepped out of his room.
"It's OK, It's just cigarette smoke!" BoB said. Thick black smoke was pouring into the hall. Later the maid told them that there were 18 cigarette packs in the trash in his room.
"That must've been why he was up last night. He stayed up and smoked cigarettes all night!" Sue told Maria.
"Hey, look who it is! It's Ken Bostic!" Bill said. Sure enough, there he was, coming toward them down the hall. He was staying at the same hotel the kids were for his golf trip. When he saw them he dropped his golfing bag on his foot and swore.
"I don't believe it! I thought I could get away from you kids for a while! You'd better not ruin my golf trip!" He turned and went the other way.
"Hey, the moron left his golf bag!" they said. They stole it and hid it on the bus. While they were eating breakfast at the hotel restaurant they heard a loud scream.
"NOOOOOOOO!!!!!! WHERE'S MY GOLFING BAG!!!!!" It was Ken.
"Let's go on the beach!" BoB said. But first they bought some exploding golf balls and put them in Ken's bag. Then they put it at his room door.
The kids and BoB were all excited to get to the beach after they ate. When they got out there, Bill was running so fast he ran into a sign. He was holding his head and yelling when Sue noticed what was on the sign.
"Hey, look! It says: NO SWIMMING! POLLUTED WATER FROM RECENT OIL SPILL!" The kids were booing and kicking the sign.
"Well, kids, we can still have fun on the beach. At least it's nice outsite." BoB said, trying to cheer them up. The kids were still booing. Just then there was a huge crack of thunder and it began to pour down rain.
"Ken Bostic said it was going to be sunny and warm this weekend! What a moron!" Carl complained.
"Yeah, let's get him!" Donny said. The kids cheered, and ran towards the hotel and Ken's room.
"No, wait, you whippersnappers! Don't you go gettin' me me in trouble again!" But BoB couldn't run fast enough to catch up with them and eventually stopped. "Man, I need to stop smoking", he said, out of breath. He lit a cigarette.
Meanwhile, the kids had run back to the hotel and up to Ken's room. But he wasn't there. "He must've gone golfing! In the storm!" Bill said. They ran down to where they left BoB. He was on his third cigarette, and he put it out when he saw them.
"Did yun's get him?" BoB asked. "How much trouble am I in?"
"No, we didn't find him. Take us to the golf course" the kids shouted. They cheered when BoB let them on the bus. When they arrived at the golf course that was affiliated with the hotel, Ken was T'eeing off. It was still storming.
"Fore!" He shouted. He hit the ball and it blew up with a huge cloud of dust and a bang. The kids were cracking up, and BoB was laughing too. Ken was yelling and pulling another ball out of his bag. A huge stroke of lightning hit a tree at the other end of the golf course.
"He's going to get struck!" Sue shouted. The kids jumped off the bus to go grab Ken. After all, they didn't want their favorite "weatherman" to get killed! Ken looked at the sky and swore. "I HATE THE WEATHER!" He said. The kids ran towards him. "NO! GET AWAY FROM ME!" Ken was fighting as the kids pulled him on to the bus. As soon as they got on, lightning struck the tree Ken was standing by.
"You kids have ruined my life! All I want to do is golf!"Ken complained. They brought him back to the hotel. It had stopped raining.
"Well, what do you want to do now?" BoB asked. The kids wanted to go fishing. BoB agreed and said there was nothing that could possibly go wrong fishing.
When they got to the pier, they saw Ken's wife again. She was selling overpriced crafts at a tourist stand. When she saw them, she ran to the phone to call her husband. They took her crafts and threw them into the ocean. They laughed and rented some fishing gear.
The kids nor BoB had caught anything in the disgusting water for a while. Then Joe shouted. "I got something!" he said. He pulled it in, but it was only one of the little dolphins Ken's wife had been selling. "This stinks", he said. No sooner had he said that when BoB got a hit.
"This is a huge one!" BoB said, sliding across the pier toward the edge. "Come help me!" The kids all ran over to pull on BoB's rod. They had reeled most of it in when a huge barricuda leaped out of the water and on top of BoB. "HELP! IT"S BITING ME!" BoB was trying to burn it with his cigarette. The kids pulled it off and helped BoB up. The fish flopped off and back in to the water. "After all that, I lost it!".
"Well, at least you're still here." It started to rain again. BoB flipped his cigarette in to the water.
"No! BoB, it's oil!" Donny yelled, trying to catch the cigarette. But he was too late. The cigarette hit, and the surface of the water burst into flames. "Where's Ken Bostic and his baking soda when you need it!" he said, turning to run for the beach. They ran off just before the burning pier collapsed into the water. Luckily, it started to rain harder and it put out the fire before it got too big.
"I'm sick of this. Let's go back to the school." Sue said. The kids agreed.
"Yeah, we've caused enough trouble here. Back on the bus!" BoB said.
On the way home on the bus they watched on News 13 how Ken Bostic with his emergency baking soda trucks helped save a strip of coast next to a golf course from the oil fire. Ken Bostic was getting some kind of award from the baking soda awareness fund and PGA golf.
"What a loser." said Phil. "Of course he saved the golf course!"
Suddenly on the news the golf course busrt into flames because Ken Bostic had used outdated baking soda. The kids cheered.
They arrived at the school earley the next day. BoB was fired, and out looking for a job again. The kids kept going to school and started the Ken Bostic Fan Club.
Stay tuned for more great BoB stories!
Copyright 1996
