madrona

Seattle would be so, so much better with the Volvo. Rather than moving several people place-to-place per day (most importantly, transporting myself), and serving as an adventure mobile, it rests, lazily, in our garage. If I were that car, I'd probably be so relieved for once. But I'm not. Instead, I miss its unconditional good times and transportation and have to depend on the King County Metro (AKA: Public Bus).

The nice thing about having your own car is that YOU get to choose exactly where you go and who you share your space with. However, public transportation doesn't exactly offer those luxuries. Instead, you must find the appropriate "bus stop" and await its arrival. $1.25 and you can go just about anywhere in the city. And if you remember a transfer, and make use of it within the next few hours, your return trip is paid for. So, the bus is cheap. But you pay for it with the amount of germs you pick up, and the strange people you must withstand in close proximity.

Thus far, I have already experienced some outré (bizarre) people...

Most recently, a man boarded the bus and began digging in his pockets for bus money. The bus driver, irritably told him, "You need to have your money ready before you get on the bus. We aren't leaving until you put your money in the machine, Mister."

The grungy, un-shaven man paused and replied, "Hey man, you just calm down. I've got plenty of money right here in my pocket. You just wait a minute. I'll put it in your little machine-doo-dad. You just stay right there and hang on and ever'thing is gonna be ok. No worries dude. See, here it is. I've got hundreds of dollars actually, Mr. Bus Driver. There ya go sir."

He eagerly took a seat near me and continued, "Ya know, life isn't hard. People just make life hard. Ya just gotta be. There isn't nothin' in this life that is worth gettin' all worked up over. People just make things worse for themselves. I mean, I just live, and everything is good for me..." -And he kept goin on like that.

As he kept rambling on about his self-assuring philosophies of life, I pretended to be ignoring him while examining his appearance from the corner of my eye. Other than his normal ho-bo-ish, torn, dirty clothes, he had an inner pocket that held a can of beer with a straw in it (probably for easy access). -No wonder "life isn't hard."

Also, this last week, I noted a handi-capped man with what I thought was just a bottle of apple juice in his little motorized wheel chair. -Upon closer examine of the ORANGE JUICE bottle, I realized it was urine.

And then there are the sick perverts who like to use full buses as an excuse to grope innocent girls. "Oh, sorry, let me just reach directly across your chest so I can hang on to this handlebar... Oh, woops, sudden jerk, sorry about having to grab on to your... Umm..."

"Yeah, mister, that was my boob!"

Riding the bus is posh.