Four Stories About Public Transportation

Welcome to public transportation where everything entertaining is scary and probably illegal.

LIKE A BUS.

Public Transportation, amirite?

I haven’t had a car since April of 2008 so I’ve become well versed in the delights and the travails of public transportation.  It’s a fucking mess but in hindsight some kind of sweet shit has gone down.

Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. We do need carpool lanes though.

Public Transportation Story #1: Cheerio-odie-odie-odi-O!  Cheeri-idie-idie-I!

(Is there one person under the age of sixty that gets that reference?)

Speaking of 30, the 30 bus runs from Old Town San Diego to Pacific Beach and was the bus I rode about four times a week for two years.  It has a pretty high scumbag to regular person ratio particularly later at night.  This particular ride happened at around 9am.  I’m wearing my usual anti-hobo uniform (sunglasses/ear-buds/book/look on my face like I just heard K-Stew cheated on R-Patz).  I’m reading when a plastic baggie breaks my field of vision.  I ignore it.  Nothing good can come of it.  I put my head even further down.  The bag appears again.  This time it jiggles a little.

I look up to see a wiry black guy wearing sunglasses and jamming the fuck out to a disc-man.  And when I say jamming out I can’t stress that enough.  He is dancing as hard as you can dance and still remain seated.  He going off like Scrillex just dropped the bass.

He is also holding a ziploc baggie of Cheerios that he is munching on.  He catches my eye. (Side-note: Never ever look at anybody on the bus unless you are mentally prepared to interact with them.)  The Cheerios are immediately stuffed in my face again and shaken.  I shake my head and hold up a hand.  None for me.  I don’t have health insurance.

He points at the bag as if to say “No seriously have some home Cheerios that I put in a ziploc.”  And feel this fucking groove!

I changed seats.  I actually think a person next to him actually took him up on his toasted oat generosity.

Public Transportation Story #2:  I’m on a bus right now so this is a great time to talk.

I don’t answer my phone on the bus or subway or trolley.  It could be me and the bus driver.  The call can wait.  I am goddamn impressed with some of the conversations that will go down on a bus with 14 people within earshot.  I had a guy next to me that makes a call to his doctor.

I know because this was one of the times when my phone was actually dead but I put the ear-buds in for camouflage.  He has a pretty in-depth discussion regarding a skin lesion that was unidentified up until he was sitting next to me on the bus. Shingles.  That’s fun.

He gets off the phone.  Makes another call.  To his lawyer.  To discuss his domestic abuse case. They had a good four-minute discussion about how he didn’t really remember anything from the night in question.

Both of these conversations were conducted at a louder than normal voice to make sure the doctor/lawyer/rest of the bus could hear every word.  I was hoping he’d call a drug dealer next and score some ya-yo.  That would have been the tri-fecta.

Public Transportation Story #3: Just when you think you’ve hit rock bottom…

This is the only mindset when you are at a bus stop in San Diego.  There is nothing to tell you if the bus is running late or early.  No app.  All the digital signs for the trolley have never worked.  You spend a lot of time standing around.  Especially when you are trying to make the last bus.

I’d often be 25 minutes early.  Standing around like a pile of dicks perfecting my stare into the middle distance where I’m not really looking at anything.

One of these times I’m getting to the point where I’m pretty sure I missed the last bus. I’m cursing the now $30 cab ride when I feel a rabbit punch to the center of my chest as a car comes across my field of vision.  Something plastic clatters to the ground next to me.  A McDonalds Ranch dressing container.

I look up to see the car white Lexus brake momentarily then speed off.  Ranch dressing is splattered across my chest.

Based on calculus and athleticism alone this was an incredible shot.  The speed limit on that road is 35mph and they hit me in numbers with that ranch cup.  I’d say Drew Brees only makes that throw 4 out of 5.

Athleticism notwithstanding what kind of jackwagon rides around in a luxury car throwing Mickey D’s condiments at people who missed the bus?

I wiped a lot of that ranch on some cabbies backseat.

Public Transportation #4: Sometimes the bus is magic.

Usually I had to be on the bus by 8:15am in the morning.

It is not unusual to see people sneaking nips off a flask or a secreted beer at night.  It is unusual to see someone doing it at 8:15am.  It is even more unusual for it to be a tall boy Natty Light.  Nevertheless I watched a little Mexican guy crouch behind the seat back nearest the rear door of the bus and kill one.

He only paused when a guy who wasn’t paying attention accidentally kicked him while trying to exit the bus.  The Mexican does a neat barrel roll out the door and lands on both feet.  Hops back on the bus just as the doors were closing.  Neat as you please.

It was one of the more graceful maneuvers I’ve ever seen drunk or sober.  It was like it had happened to him before.

Ten minutes later we are riding along and I’m wondering if Barrel Roll’s got a second tall boy in him.  We come to a stop and he does a tight stunt roll out the door again.  Hops up and starts walking down the sidewalk.

Like a boss.

Have a stunt roll weekend.

(By the way this is what you get when you type bus song into Youtube.)

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OPERATION: YOKO NO NO UPDATE- WEEK 15

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Weekly Recap: You ever read a Wikipedia entry for some pseudo famous person, say Gerry Rafferty of Stealers Wheel, and read about him basically making his whole career and life off one song and think to yourself what am I doing?  And then after a moment of existential doubt do you think to yourself what the hell is a ‘Stealers Wheel’?  Yeah, I don’t know either and twenty minutes of Googling didn’t change that.  I have a special prize for the person that finds the meaning (and it has to be the consensus definition/origin) and puts it in the comments.  I’m serious.  I really do have a prize.

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