Bus Culture

[I know - I just fell of the face of the earth, didn't I? Oh well. I'm back.]

When The Boy is not ever-so-kindly carting my lazy self around, my main mode of transportation is bus. It is how I get to and from work most days.

There is a whole culture around riding a bus that you would never think to dream up if you don’t ride one yourself. There are expected things, like the regulars you see every day, and there are things less easy to predict.

For example, I had no idea that a disproportionately large percentage of my Seasonal Changes mental landscape would be tied to riding the bus.

I distinctly remember one morning during my first winter in Portland when it had snowed and half the buses got beached, crisscrossing lanes of traffic, hazards flashing. And so I walked to work. I walked about thirty blocks. As I scaled my way up from random residential streets to larger, commercial streets, more and more similarly stranded commuters joined the stream until I crossed the bridge with a brigade of other walking workers. It looked like a trudging exodus.

A few mornings later, when the buses were back on their routes, but the snow had yet to melt, I waited at my normal stop. Things were slippery, and when the bus started braking a block away and finally halted out in the middle of the street, I started to step off the curb to meet it and climb aboard. The door opened and the driver yelled, “STOP! STOP RIGHT THERE! WAIT! STEP BACK!” frantically waving her hand in the palm-out “stop” position. Startled, I stepped back onto the curb before I realized she was trying to keep me safe: the bus was slowly sliding towards the curb. It groaned and creaked and slowly slid right up to the curb, where it came to rest.

The driver nonchalantly relaxed her hand and cheerfully welcomed me, “Mornin’! Come on up!”

This past winter, so many buses were getting temporarily (or less so) stranded that the bus schedule was useless and, not having any desire to wait 45 minutes in the snow (in my ill-equipped wardrobe) for my morning ride to show up, I would check the transit website. They knew that guessing arrival times was useless, so they’d handily hijacked the bus GPS system to track arrivals at stops. You could look up your bus stop and watch:

1.3 miles away.

…

Now 1.1 miles away.

Now 1 mile. Time to go trek to the stop.

But, I’m guessing due to the slipping and sliding, there were times that you’d watch and it would be more like

1.3 miles away.

…

1.3 miles away.

…
…
1.3 miles away.

…

1. wait. 1.FOUR miles away? It’s getting farther away?

But now it’s summer.

We were having a heat spell last week, and it was HOTT. Aych. Oh. Double tee. HOTT. It’s the kind of hot where I’m guiltily ecstatic that we have central air in the house. I know I should leave it off and tough it out and be a good little environmentalist, but when it’s bedtime and your indoor thermometer reads 87 and it’s still so much hotter outside that you don’t want to open the window…well… Well nothing. The air conditioner is on, set to a very reasonable temperature, and it is AWESOME.

Anyway.

The transit website now has reports that the light rail train is running off schedule because they’re running at slower speeds to prevent issues from the heat.

Two days ago, the bus I was riding on overheated and the always-surly-but-especially-surly-that-day driver informed us we’d have to just wait it out, or grab the next bus, whichever came fist. It wasn’t long before we were back in the fight, but by then a bunch of people had harumphed and left. Presumably to walk in 100+ weather. Ha. Have fun with that.

Today on the drive home, the bus’s constant whir-hum suddenly dropped off and, without hesitation the way-less-surly-more-awesome-than-the-other-woman driver said, “Ok folks. Listen up. We just lost the air. You’re going to have to open all the windows.” One of the street characters (the ones who always know the drivers and sit up front to chat) said, “That’s too bad for you, huh?” and the driver shrugged it off, “Fifth time today. Last night my engine died with no warning and I had to coast to the shoulder. This is nothing.”

All the homeward-bound commuters did the obligatory sigh, head shake, tsk, scowl, and/or outraged yelp to bemoan Fate’s gall in inconveniencing them so. Then, in unison, everyone dramatically threw their arms in the air and heaved open all the windows.

This is the general attitude People get when something doesn’t operate as they wish it would. When the buses slide, or never show up because they’re stuck in a snow bank, or overheat, or quit pushing air…people get really grumpy.

And I throw my arms in the air with disgust and share a tsking moment with my bus-bench-neighbor like the rest of them.

But the secret is that I really love it when these things happen. It’s like having a little, mini, harmless adventure that doesn’t really inconvenience your day. Of course I only love it until I don’t, and I only love it when I’m in a pleasant mood, which I am upset to find myself in less and less these days (but that’s a topic for another day). But generally, when I am what I would like to call my normal, good-natured self, these adventures make me positively giddy.

There’s something really fun about being stuck in a (minor) pickle with other people and having to make the best of it. It’s the stuff corny bonding tales are made of, and I eat it right up.