Yeah, I was, twice. There used to be a local show called Uncle Al's... something. It was a kids show. Practically any kid that grew up in Cincinnati in the late 70's or early 80's was on the show at one time or another.
I was also on the news within the last year. I don't think I told this story, so I'll - *ahem* - take the opportunity....
Jennie and I moved into a house together this past summer with her son, Lucas, who was five at the time. We moved about an hour from where we were living before. Due to the way the house purchase went down, we weren't certain that we were even going to get the house until like the 11th hour, so Lucas' school and daycare arrangements were tough with school gearing up less than a month after we moved.
Lucas was moving to first grade. We live too close to his school for him to ride the bus (but way too far for a five-year-old to walk. His school starts after Jennie and I have to be to work, so we had arranged for a private bussing service to pick him up from a daycare (and drop him off). The daycare and bus situation was all arranged in the week leading up to school. The lady at the bus company said usually it takes a few weeks to process the paperwork but she'd make sure he could ride the bus on the 2nd day of school. It was going to be a life-saver for us.
Well, on that 2nd day of school, the schools principal called Jennie and said that the bus driver who was supposed to take him from school to the daycare kicked him off and sent him back to school, because he wasn't on the riding list. The kind principal took him to the daycare herself.
It turns out that instead of the bus driver didn't check the list initially, but instead drove down the school driveway onto the street (clogged with traffic at this time of day). While waiting she must have checked because she dropped him off a ways down the street. She told a 3rd grader (9 years old) to take him back to school. So we're talking about a five year old kid at a brand new school on just the second day, in an area of town he is completely unfamiliar with where he knows no one, and he's being dropped off in some random neighborhood where a 9 year old girl took him back to school.
Needless to say, we were fucking pissed. We didn't want a bus driver that makes decisions like that responsible for Lucas, because it was flat-out irresponsible. So we call the bus company to complain and ask for the bus driver to either be terminated or at the very least moved to another bus or route. What do we hear? The woman Jennie spoke to that said Lucas could ride on the 2nd day was very rude and claimed to have no recollection of their conversation at all and that she wouldn't get to his paperwork for another week or two.
This was a big deal. Jennie called the police claiming they endangered her child (the officer said that while he understood a mother's concern, what the bus driver did wasn't exactly endangerment and hence wasn't illegal). My parents, myself, Jennie, Jennie's mom, Jennie's sister, and my friend Dave all called the company several times, speaking to various people in order to complain, claim do be a third party that heard about the incident calling to ream them, and to discuss things with the owner/manager. The owner/manager was nice, but the entire company was idle about the whole thing and basically taking the stance "Sorry..." in that "I'm saying I'm sorry but don't really mean it" sort of way. This went on for a few days.
We thought about filling a suit but in the end it would have cost too much money. So we used a contact at the big local news station and put the story on the news. We thought it would be sort of a filler story if it was a slow news day, or not even make it on the air. It was the lead story. In fact, if it wasn't for some big storm, it would have been the very first thing mentioned on the five o'clock news. It was also the top story on the website for two days straight and available as one of the top five stories for the rest of the week.
Lucas was perfect in the story. His greatest sound bite was when he said "The bus driver said I wasn't on her list, so she just stopped at somebody's house and kicked me off," in that cute squeaky five-year old voice with this sort of uncomfortable look on his face. You could just feel mothers everywhere feeling crushed for him when you watched it.
Unfortunately, nothing has changed. Same bus driver. But the company did make sure his paperwork was pushed through faster. So I guess we did get that out of it.
