I Rode the Bus Today, and Now I Can’t Stop Crying

Last summer I told you I had less than six months remaining to complete three years worth of CLE classes. You probably forgot that I had to take those classes, which is quite the coincidence as I did too. Well, not “forgot” exactly; more like “repressed.” In July, I had completed 1.25 hours out of 45. As of yesterday, I had completed 2.25 hours out of 45. As of today, however, I have worked my way all the way up to 9 hours. Only 36 more hours! I hardly want to kill myself at all!

The class was held downtown and I considered driving, but there’s no early bird parking rate at that building and I would have had to pay $26 for the day. By contrast, if I ride the bus, round trip fare is only $5 plus the $8 copay for prescription antibiotics.

My god, how I hate the bus. I haven’t ridden it in a couple of years, and in the intervening time, the light rail train has started running. You would think this would make the bus less crowded, but no. Because more people are riding light rail, bus routes have been cut back. But at the same time, more people are riding the bus to get to the light rail stations, which means not only do I have to pay $2.50 to smell people who have irregular bathing habits, but I have to stand up while doing so.

In a related vein, while I don’t necessarily think men should have to relinquish their seats to women — I mean, I think it, but I don’t necessarily think it — I do feel it’s completely uncivilized for younger people not to give up their seats for older people. The seats were filled with people in their teens and twenties staring straight ahead, pretending not to notice all the elderly people in the aisle who were trying not to go ass over teakettle every time the driver remembered at the very last second that red means stop. I am kind of old, but I still will give up my seat to older people or pregnant women or really to anyone at all if the person I’m sitting next to is odiferous enough.

This morning when I boarded the bus I had to stand, but once we got to the light rail station, seats opened up and I got to sit. Unfortunately, I had to sit on one of those sideways benches at the back of the bus, which is normally prime sleeping hobo territory. Some people don’t like the sideways benches because riding sideways gives them motion sickness, but I don’t like them because you have to face the people sitting on the bench across from you and at least one of those people is staring at you with a murderous rage. In addition, behind the sideways bench there are seats facing forward and thus people facing forward staring at your profile, one of whom will invariably lean close to your face and say, “those are nice earrings. Are those your earrings?” That’s always a comfortable moment.

To make matters worse, I was in the middle seat of the sideways bench, sandwiched in between two guys who evidently were in agreement that at some point prior to this morning, I had used up my lifetime allotment of personal space. They were relatively fragrance-free, so I allowed it, not that I had much of a choice.

Then the bus driver made an announcement, “James Street, King County Courthouse,” and pulled up to the stop. Oh no. The guys to my left and right stood and while I am always happy when strangers stop touching me, my happiness was mitigated by the fact that I was now sitting in between two empty seats and this was the stop outside the courthouse. Also known as the official bus stop of commercial bail bonding. If you ever find yourself on the bus at this stop, there are two rules you ignore at your peril. Rule #1: Do not make eye contact with anyone. Rule #2: If someone sits next to you, for the love of all that is holy, do not get up and move to a different seat. That is just asking for it.

Because it was my lucky day, not just one but two people who boarded at this stop sat down next to me. I couldn’t look directly at either of them because of Rule #1, but out of the corner of my right eye, I could see a tall man, with a walking stick, wearing ripped jeans and a black pleather coat, judging by the smell of which he had worn while running a million laps in the hot sun around a cheese factory. I ceased all respiration for about two blocks, but then I decided passing out from lack of oxygen in this particular location was probably bad thinking. In an attempt to breathe, but in a surreptitious way so as not to cause the kind of offense which leads to being beaten with a walking stick, I turned my head slightly to the left, my gaze falling upon the leg of the other man sitting next to me, a leg covered with denim, the denim covered with grime. Seriously, I have never seen a dirtier item of clothing in my life. I could actually make out that there were two levels of filth. There was an undercoat of gray dirt, and a second coat of brown dirt. The time to flee had arrived. I was still seven blocks away from the stop I wanted, and it was cold as hell out, but I’ve heard that freezing to death can be pleasant, whereas asphyxiation is disagreeable.

So I got off the bus seven blocks early and walked to my class, where I learned many many useful things. The first thing I learned is that you have to get to the conference center before 7:45 if you want a sugar-free Yoplait. If you get there after 7:45, all the sugar-free Yoplaits will be gone and they will only have Activia left, and one of your classmates will examine each of the cartons of Activia with a look of disdain and say, “isn’t this that yogurt that makes you go to the bathroom?” before he takes a poppyseed muffin and returns to his seat. And because you have had an upsetting commute and you really just want some yogurt, despite its 18 grams of sugar you will take one of the Activias, and you will return to your seat and you will be eating your Activia and you will look up and the guy with the poppyseed muffin will be watching you eat your Activia as if he’s afraid you are about to blow. The second thing I learned is that the hot water handle on the water dispenser needs to be jiggled around before you depress it. If you depress it without jiggling it first, you won’t get any hot water. The third thing I learned is not to take a seat near the water dispenser unless you feel like helping a half dozen people make their tea.