I hopped a bus around 6:45 right in front of my house, In the 10 years I’ve lived there that’s the first time ever that I’ve done that. Why yes, I am in fact a spoiled suburban-raised WASP who only drives everywhere, why do you ask? The bus driver plowed up into the snowbank to get me which, actually I thought was pretty helpful. The next guy we picked up tried to hop into the street to board when the bus approached and almost got himself run over. She scolded him for one really long minute before sending him to his seat. Yes, she ordered him like a schoolmarm to a recalcitrant student. He and I shared an eye roll. I mean, she was right, what he did wasn’t smart, if he had known what she was going to do, but he didn’t, so I didn’t think she had to be so bitchy about it. Moments later, stuck behind a line of cars, the woman pulled the bus into the oncoming lane and gunned it. Yes, gunned it into oncoming traffic. Suddenly, before she hit the car in front of us she turned left, while still accelerating, into a bus-only cut-through. I looked at Almost-Squashed Guy and mouthed “What The FUCK?”
We got to the station in one piece, miraculously, and I hopped on an inbound red line train. All the seats were either full or in between people. I figured, I’m a tough broad, I’ll just grab on to this pole, lean up against it and enjoy the ride. Moments after leaving the station, I hear a voice say, “Excuse me.” I look down and the elderly gentleman sitting on the end of the row I’m standing next to is looking up at me. I think, “Aw, I’ll bet he’s going to try to offer me a seat, but I won’t take it, I should tell hi—” “Excuse me miss, but you’re standing too close to my elbow, I need to spread out here.” His friend laughs and says “He has a space issue.” I do not say “Then why the fuck is he on public transportation?” Instead I smile coldly and move about 6 inches away and make a note that I seem to be swearing a lot this morning. The next stop I grab a seat and another fellow stands in the exact same spot I had been in. He does not get the “excuse me, but” from the guy. Interesting. I switch trains and at the next stop a man gets on who asks if he can have the seat next to me. I say “of course”, and he squeezes in. In the time it takes to get to the next stop I know that he thinks the seats in trains should reflect societies growing backsides, that he was one of 11 kids and that as a kid he wore the same size as his older brother, except in a “husky”. So, is this pretty much what I’ve been missing all these years in the public transportation experience?
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