I like to keep my bus stop clean. I'll spend a good ten to twenty minutes picking up trash and pushing dead leaves and sticks into the sewer drain nearby with my foot. I just like having a clean place to exist while I wait for my bus. One Monday, I had to clean up an entire newspaper left out in the rain. It took me nearly 30 minutes to pick up all the little ads and inserts they're always stick in the Sunday paper and by the time I was finished, I had to run from the trashcan a block away to catch my bus on time.
Sometimes I do such a good job of cleaning my stop, the next day there isn't anything to clean up, so I just sit quietly on my bench and read a book that I've checked out of the library 7 blocks down from my apartment. It's nice, sitting and reading quietly at my stop. It reminds me of when I was in school and I only had a handful of friends on account of the fact that I constantly had my head stuck in a book. For most of my life, I lived in a literary world. My friends were characters and my God was the omnipotent voice that narrated all of the stories. I loved it. Instead of growing up in Houston, Texas, I spent the first ten years of my life living with The Who's in Whoville. My years in middle school were spent solving crimes with Mr. Holmes and Dr. Watson. I fell in love with a girl named Catherine and sat back and watched as she fought with her brother and fell in love with a boy named Heathcliff. In high school, I traveled around the world in 80 days, dove 20,000 leagues under the sea, went whale hunting, lost my sanity on a river in the Amazon, and even traveled with a midget to a volcano to save the world from an evil wizard.
I stopped living my fictional life and started living in reality when I entered college. I simply didn't have time to read. I was spending all of my time drinking, smoking pot and not going to class. It was awesome. I forgot all about my friends Ana Karenina and Mr. Darcy. Sometimes, I'll glance over their hardcover homes and remember all the adventures we've had but to visit them now seems futile and silly. They're mystery is gone. I am like the god I created in my head, I already know what happens to them in the end.
Now I browse the shelves of the library in search of new friends. In the two weeks that I've returned to my literature world, I've grown up in North Carolina with David Sedaris, pet the mice by the river with Lennie and George, and sobbed over Matthew Shepherd's mangled, murdered body.
Yep, the life I live at my bus stop is a simple one. It's not until I board the bus when things get complicated and interesting.
Today as I sat staring at a business man jog across the intersection in his expensive suit and black leather briefcase, a man from the back of the bus shouts, "Ma'am!....Sir, sorry. There's someone running for the bus." He wanted the bus driver to stop and wait for them. I wanted him to keep going. I was already running late for work and didn't feel like being even more late because someone else couldn't bother to show up at their stop on time. The driver stopped anyway and on walked the most monochromatic man I've ever seen in my life. He wore dirty tennis shoes that probably were white in the store but after months of running for nearly missed buses, have turned a dingy gray. His blue jeans were equally faded to the point of turning a dull blueish gray. And of course, his shirt was striped with two shades of gray. In an almost comedic fashion though, his hair was dyed a brilliant shade of highlighter yellow but I could see his roots growing in, dusty, gray roots.
Sometimes I wonder if people own mirrors. He seemed like a pleasant man, happy with his life and his choices. But I couldn't help but giggle slightly, picturing him standing in front of his mirror, taking in his entire outfit and saying, "Yep, this looks good." To be fair, he wasn't the worst dressed man on the bus. An elderly woman in a jacket, hat and t-shirt, all three different shades of pink, and bright purple, nylon pants got on shortly after him. Another man, rolling back and forth in his seat as he slept, was dressed in a white business shirt with a mustard stain on the collar and drool was dripping into his pocket protector. Attractive. I really shouldn't judge these people. I'm no fashionista either. I wore the same pair of jeans and black polo everyday. There were no doubt blotches of food and thin white lines of deodorant on the shirt. And I'm certain there was a quarter sized white spot on the back pocket of my jeans where a pen had exploded and leaked ink all over my wallet, leaving me forced to throw out the wallet and try to bleach the ink out.
Riding the bus is kind of like living in a cartoon. People don't seem to be real, acting and dressing like people you'd only imagine to appear in Peanuts or Foxtrot. Every once and a while, an attractive hipster or sexy businessman will board the 50 to Downtown and I'll spend the entire ride either staring at them over my book or glancing at them every five seconds in hopes that they'd look back at me and we'd both smile, introduce ourselves and spend the next 30 years together. Of course, more often than not, they'd either catch me staring and move to the back of the bus or wouldn't even take notice of me and quietly exit the bus at their stop and continue on with their happy, sexy lives.
The people, while entertaining, can also be the most annoying. If I've learned anything since I started using public transportation, it's the 6 Rules of Riding the Bus:
1) Always have exact change. Waiting for someone who's waiting to receive change from the machine is akin to waiting for the grass to grow or the paint to dry.
Once, after thoroughly cleaning my stop, I stood behind a woman that appeared to be in her mid-thirties, waiting to board the bus. When it was her turn to pay the $1.25 it cost to ride, she proceeded to take out a sandwich sized plastic baggie of nickels...the lowest form of currency the machine would accept. And instead of having it all counted out already, as the rest of us did, she needed to count out all 25 nickels. And occasionally, she'd pull out a euro and say to herself, "That's not a nickel! I must have put it in here by mistake. I just got back from England, you know." I wanted to scream at her, "No one cares, lady! Just pay the fucking fair!" But, because of rule number 5, I was silent. Which leads me to rule #2.
2) Don't ask too many questions. You may ask the driver one question before people start looking at you like you're a complete idiot, so you better make it good. While riding the bus, I almost always sit near the front. It's the most efficient seat; you get on, sit down as quickly as possible and get off just as fast. And one time, I overheard a man, in a very thick Armenian accent, asking the driver so many questions that the driver was forced to close his doors and drive on, leaving the man to cling for dear life to the pole directly beside the driver seat. I was amazed as his tenacity, gripping the pole and continuing his line of questions as if it would save not only his own life but the lives of the other 15 people on the bus.
3) A] If you're traveling alone, bring something to distract yourself, a book, a sandwich, something. If you forgot your distraction, sit by the window and watch for any exciting car crashes that might have occurred during morning rush-hour. If there isn't a widow seat, either stand and stare off into space or sit in an aisle seat and count the fibers in your seat. Do anything but stare openly at people. Through years of peering over books and eavesdropping on my brothers' drinking and smoking in their bedrooms, I've become good at watching people without them knowing about it; only attempt if you think you can get away with it without getting shot (because let's face it, that happens on buses.)
As I rode on my afternoon commute home once, a man got on and sat beside me, it wasn't the big if a deal, the bus was full and I was just getting to the good part in my book. But all of the sudden I felt a pair of eyes on me the way someone feels after reading a crime novel about a peeping-tom. I glance over at the man and his right eye appeared to be staring peacefully out the window but his left eye was situated directly on me. I was startled at first, not quite expecting the man to be staring both at me and the business buildings of downtown at the same time. I did my best to go back to my book but every once and a while, my eyes would find themselves checking back on the eye to see if it was still staring at me; it always was. I wanted to stab his lazy-eye out with the pen in my bus-riding bag.
B] If you happen to be traveling with another adult, you may do your best to try to sit together but do not ask someone to move so that you can sit next to your travel partner. That's just rude.
C] If you are traveling with a child, please follow these instructions carefully. Wrap the child tightly using your strongest arm to prevent such things from happening as: running, jumping, skipping, or flailing. With your other hand, place it firmly over their mouth and pinch their nose closed with your first finger and thumb. This will cause them to fall into a delightfully quiet, coma-like state, allowing other passengers to enjoy their ride without sobs, shrieks, or incessant babbling. If you fail to do this and your child insists on making a spectacle, the other passengers will insist on glaring at you with daggers in their eyes and attempt to quiet the child themselves by any means necessary.
After a long weekend losing myself in the thudding lullaby of the local clubs, I was looking forward to catching a short nap on my commute to work. At the stop after I got on was a large, round woman with frizzy hair and an exhausted expression...toting behind her two children, one boy an one girl. The girl wasn't too bad at first, sitting quietly beside her mother, making her two dolls kiss over and over. Then the bus started moving, unhinging a nerve in the girl causing her to wail in terror the entire time she was on board. The woman did nothing. Meanwhile, the boy began wandering around the bus, climbing into empty seats and startling passengers by popping up behind them and making dinosaur noises. After he grew tired of this, he began racing his imaginary friend to either end of the bus. Growing steadily annoyed and after getting my foot stomped on a few times, I politely asked the mother if she could ask her child to sit down and be quiet. The mother scoffed, "Like I can control him." and then I made my decision. As the bus pulled up to a stop, and the boy raced to the back of the bus, I stuck out my foot and tripped him. He proceeded to burst into tears and roll on the floor holding his now bloody nose and I proceeded to exit the bus a full 10 blocks from my stop.
4) Always. Always always always bathe within the 12 hours prior to boarding the bus. If you wear cologne or perfume, limit yourself to 2 spritz's at most. No one wants to sit next to Pigpen from Peanuts nor does anyone want to sit next to a Bath and Body Works medley.
After a double shift at work, I boarded the bus, happy to be headed home. When I got on, I realized there was only one seat remaining next to a stick thin man in a dirty t-shirt and athletic shorts. I had just spent 8 hours standing so I took the seat beside him. I'd rather sit awkwardly next to someone than stand for one more moment. The minute I sat down, I thought, "I should have stood." He smelled like a 12 year old boy who's sweat glands just developed and had yet to discover deodorant. On top of that there was a musky, unidentifyable stench about him. I was doing my best not to vomit all over him and reach for a pole to cling to so I could stand for the remainder of my commute when he swiftly exited the bus, leaving his wreaking aura behind.
5) Never, under any circumstances are you permitted to engage in a conversation with someone. You may exchange poliete nods and maybe a quiet "hello" if you're feeling particularly kind. The only exception for this rule is if you are seated in an aisle seat and someone is beside you and you need to pull the cord for your stop. You may then, in as few words as possible, ask the person next to you to pull the cord for you. But it is preferred for you to merely tap their shoulder and then meekly point to the cord.
My very first day of work at my job, I was seated opposite a man in nice slacks, a white business shirt with a argyle sweater vest over it. He seemed normal enough so I passed him a kind smile. I suppose he took that as an invitation to find a new friend and proceeded to tell me his entire life story. Unfortunately, his stop was the same as mine and so his tale continued well after we disembarked the bus. The next day, I took a different route.
6) The last rule, and this is more of a personal rule than a generally accepted rule: only relinquish your seat for the disabled, elderly, or the attractive. And if someone approahes that you know is about to break any of these rules, spread your things out in the seat next to you and think wide thoughts.
I have but three words for this rule as to explain it's existance: seemingly homeless man.
As much flack that I give to the people riding the bus, nothing is more annoying than the voice that comes on over the PA system announcing the stops. While inteded to be helpful and a very nice courtesey, it's more like listening to a throat cancer patient trying to recite Shakespeare. The street names come put in a garbled, robotic tone with curious pronounciations. Instead of stopping at Washington and Center, we stop at "Wallowshingmom and Centaur." Luckily, the bus has a scrolling marquee, that, if in working order, displays the stop we're approaching. Some days it a series of lines and dots as it was my first day riding the bus. Since I didn't quite know where I was or where I was going, I freaked out only a little. I ended up leaning over to the man next to me and asking, "Do you know morse code?" Unfortunately, he didn't so I was forced to squint and peer out the windshield of the bus to read the street signs as they whizzed past; another perk to sitting near the front.
Today the man behind me smells heavily of weed reminding me of my glorious college days...I wonder if he'll share....
On my days on the bus, I work at a restaurant located on the bottom level of a very large mall near downtown. It isn't too bad; our customers are mall shoppers and businessmen and women that work in the nearby buildings, so the tips were usually sonehwere in the $80 - $100 range by the end of the shift. The restaurant is located in a prime people-watching spot. Right beside the public bathrooms and facing the ice skating rink. You can only imagine what type of people I watch on our slow days. Among my favorites are the people returning from the bathroom. You can always tell who didn't wash their hands. Usually putting their hands in their pockets or trying to busy themselves with small tugs to the hem of their shirts; I stare at then like they had just smeared feces all over themselves. On occasion, someone would catch me staring and instead of immediately looking away, I'd just stare them down and make them as uncomfortable as they had made me by knowing that they didn't wash their hands.
But if I'm being perfectly honest, you can only glare at feces-hands for so long. After a while, I'd turn my attention to my favorite form of entertainment: stroller collisions. Not only were they violent enough to warrent a screaming match between parents but sometimes the kids would go flying and one would end up ontop of the other.
A mother was pushing her screaming brat past the skating rink one lazy Monday afternoon, talking on the phone and paying no attention to anyone in front of her. She nearly took out a teenager, no doubtly skipping school to peroose the mall. And she definitely didn't see the other mother pushing her twin boys in a side-by-side stroller as she window shopped. The crash was amazing. Both strollers toppled over sending the three children sprawling in the aisle. The first mom dropped her phone while the other's purse emptied itself beside the children. Immediately, without care to the well-being of their children, the women began screaming at each other blaming the other for a cracked phone screen or a stepped on lipstick. It was a good 2 minutes before either of the parents bent down to check on their child. The parenting skills exuded by these two sent me reeling. For once in my life, I felt bad for the kids.
