Notes from the bus

Friday:
I'm fairly certain this week's morning operator of the 15 needs counseling for some sort of serious personal anguish that has manifested itself into aggression toward those who utilize public transportation. Every time this man stops the bus he brakes so suddenly and fiercely that all of the passengers lurch forward, their necks straining to keep their heads in place above their shoulders.I know now that I need to hang onto something for the duration of the trip. It makes me too car sick to read. This style of driving is reminiscent of my mother's. I remember Erin once saying that she thought my mom was going to miss the turn for our house the first couple of times she rode with her, because she would drive until the chicken moment when she would brake forcefully and make the turn onto Roundup Lane, testing the torque limits of her Camry.
--I'm an advocate for requiring annual driving tests at the onset of the receipt of Social Security retirement benefits. I'm going to add routine ghost appraisals of bus drivers' abilities to my limited list of positive government audits of its citizens. I know driving a public bus is a fairly thankless, and, likely, rather irritating job, so join a karate class or something if you hate driving the bus. Don't slam your lead foot on the brakes in a passive-aggressive pity party meant to convey your frustration with your lot in life.--

Tuesday:
The evening commute on Denny Way is enough to make a man physically angry, what with its seemingly endless stream of cars that sit through light after light without moving. It's like Seattle's own little nightly version of the packed-highway flight from Hurricane Katrina. Nobody moves. In spite of the emotional mini-drama that unfolds in my mind as I stand outside of the Greyhound station staring up the hill at the unmoving cars, willing the 8 to be one of them, my irritation dissipates when I board the bus. The operator is a long-haired, thirty-something surfer culture cast-off who smiles perpetually and makes no apologies or complaints for having the shittiest possible route during rush hour.

Today I stepped up to scan my bus pass, inadvertently sliding it through the scanner upside down. When I righted it and slid it through correctly he congratulated me, "Right on!" I held my fist up at his chest level and he knocked it with his. For the next twenty-five or so minutes that it took to drive about one mile down Denny I tried to emulate this guy's chill. Developing an ulcer in reaction to a completely helpless situation would be rather a somber reminder that one is hideously uptight.

Wednesday:
I took the Express bus to get home tonight after I transferred from the 8. This was my first mistake. The Express bus makes limited stops and is, thus, much faster than the normal buses. What little benefit this has for my patience is greatly overshadowed by the feeling, upon entering an Express bus, that one has stepped into a holding area for subjects of a medical quarantine. This bus was packed with people- people who smell. Bad. I walked to the back of the bus in search of less odiferous air. Even there people were standing, but there was an empty seat next to a candidate for an It's Pat casting call.

Second, more significant mistake: I sat down next to IT. In the future, a good rule to follow states that if a considerable number of discontinuous individuals have chosen to stand rather than occupy an empty seat, there is clearly something wrong with the person next to the empty seat, or maybe there are invisible daggers in the seat's cushioning. The reason for the vacancy may remain a mystery to you forever, but for the love of God use the mental capacities granted you by millions of years of natural selection and don't fucking take the empty seat. Because IT radiates an acrid stench and hacks a phlegmy cough into a wadded kleenex in IT's hand every fifteen seconds, as if directed by a metronome.

Thursday:
There is a girl across from me who has shaved her eyebrows completely from her face and redrawn them, unevenly, in black pencil about an inch above her brow bones. I'm enjoying picturing her in the rain. Her make up will run, causing streaks in her eyebrows. The black droplets will run in streams directly into her eyes because she has no brow hair to dam the flow. How bizarre.