So, you think you want to build a skoolie?

In preparation for building our bus, Zach and I spent a lot of time researching what other people had done to transform their old school busses into skoolies, (visit www.skoolie.net, it will blow your mind), and combined their info with our own ideas to create Expect Delays. I was really proud of all the work that Zach had put into figuring out how each component would fit in and function in our skoolie, and it felt good that we had discovered another group of people who were experiencing the same triumphs and setbacks as us. And we did have setbacks. So, if you think you want to build a skoolie, you should know a few things: 1)you will need mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and construction skills, or enough spunk to convince your girlfriend that you have these skills even if you technically don't. 2)you will need a lot of freetime and you will have to be flexible about your schedule because things will take, on average, three times longer than you thought they would. For instance, you will often use the phrase, "it'll take an hour, max," and then have to explain to your girlfriend that yes, ideally it would have taken an hour, but in reality it took four, and that's just the way it is. 3)you will need to be prepared to weather a whole lot of conversations that go something like this:

boyfriend: *drops something heavy on foot* "grrr, I thought this was supposed to be fun. Are you having fun?"

girlfriend: *crawls out from under bus seat* "Do I look like I'm having fun?"

boyfriend: "I don't know"

girlfriend: "Well, I'm not. Are you having fun?"

boyfriend: "Obviously I'm not having fun. Why are you asking ridiculous questions?"

girlfriend: *voice now one octave higher* "You asked me first!"

boyfriend: "Whatever, we need a break, I'm going to get food."

...but, in the end, you will have an amazing cabin on wheels, and you'll sit inside it and start up your woodstove, and laugh about all those times you wanted to do away with your boyfriend/girlfriend, but how in the end you're really happy about where you ended up. Except then it'll be 3am and you have to pee, and it's really cold, so you'll just lie awake for awhile and contemplate why you did this, but eventually, you'll get over it, and find your gratitude once more.