Comedy of Errors No Fun for Santa Barbara Youths

San Marcos High School in this northern San Diego County community ordered seven buses to take graduating seniors to Disneyland for an all-night party Thursday night.

San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara ordered 10 buses to take graduating seniors to Disneyland for an all-night party Thursday.

Seventeen buses--10 more than requested--showed up Thursday night at San Marcos High School in San Marcos. Guess how many buses showed up at San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara?

Ooooops, says Greyhound Lines, which on Friday learned there are two--count ‘em, two--San Marcos High Schools in California, separated by a couple hundred miles.

That’s been a confusing point for the two schools for years. One school gets the other school’s wrestling mats; the other school gets the one school’s graduation announcements. The two principals regularly swap mail.

And so it went Thursday night, with 400 seniors in Santa Barbara all dressed up but no way to go, and 370 graduating seniors in San Marcos with more buses than they knew what to do with.

Which gets us to one of those math problems kids just hate: If there are 17 buses heading north toward Disneyland at 55 m.p.h., and none heading south, where do they meet?

At the complaint desk of Greyhound in Dallas.

“We’ve apologized, said we were embarrassed and sorry,” said Greyhound public relations director George Gravley on Friday.

The 10 buses that were supposed to show up Thursday night were rescheduled for Friday night. And guess who’s popping for breakfast for the kids on the return trip?

Gravley said the mix-up was, well, sort of explainable. When San Marcos High School in Santa Barbara contracted for the 10 buses, Greyhound sent a confirmation--to the appropriate street address in Santa Barbara, and the appropriate ZIP code, but to the wrong city--San Marcos. Still, the confirmation letter arrived at the high school in Santa Barbara.

Meanwhile, at San Marcos High School in northern San Diego County, a different bus company--Goodall--was hired to provide seven buses.

On Thursday night in San Marcos, 10 Greyhound buses showed up a couple of hours early. The drivers explained that they were surely at the right school, and perhaps Goodall was overbooked and asked for Greyhound assistance.

And Seven More Buses

The kids were loaded up and the buses were heading out of the parking lot at 9:25--when the seven Goodall buses showed up.

The Goodall drivers looked at the Greyhound drivers. And the Greyhound drivers said, hey, no problem, we’ve got this load and Disneyland, here we come!

The Goodall drivers shrugged and went home, empty.

And in Santa Barbara, meanwhile, the kids had been cooling their heels for two hours. At 9:15 p.m., they were sent home.

Arrangements were made to reschedule for Friday night.

“And they’ve called us back twice today to make sure they’ve got the directions straight,” said Assistant Principal Jaime Castellanos.