Riding the bus

After 30+ years I started riding the bus to work. It has been a whole new experience. Then again my Company pays for the bus ride. With rising gasoline price, my wife's urging, and my car nearing 100,000 miles, I guess it makes sense. No, I am not trying to save the green earth. It’s selfish economics. However, there are also down sides to riding a bus.

Sometimes as I get close to my “park & ride” place to get on the bus, the bus will drive off. It’s not the driver’s fault. I leave home cutting too close to the bus schedule. Then I have to wait in the windy, cold weather for the next bus. Obviously, you don’t know who will sit next to you. People come in all shapes and sizes. With my luck, I have not sat next to a pretty girl yet and I am not a dirty old man. Some people take one and a half seats. Fortunately, I can still fit in 1/2 a seat. Some times the person next to you will be coughing and you wonder if you might come home sick. After work, as I rush to get to my bus stop to ride back, at times the light will turn red at the crossing at the perfect moment stopping me to get across to the bus. The bus will have the green light. You can raise your arm to get the attention of the driver to no avail. Obviously some are cold and some are always hot inside the bus. The driver fools around with the a/c to satisfy the complaining rider(s) with not much success. I try to doze off in the bus. It’s not easy. You can hear stories relayed through the cell phones about personal romances, business deals, nasty divorces, ailing old parents in nursing homes, kids’ basket ball games, etc. If you have the creative writing skill you could possibly come out with an interesting fiction. It won’t be the story of the Orient Express or the famous Selma-Montgomery bus ride, albeit it will be an interesting story.

I think I am slowly getting used to the ride. The bus announces (a recorded female voice), “The next stop is Milam at Lamar”. I automatically pick up my stuff, thank the driver and walk a block to my destination on the 14th floor of a pink high rise in down town Houston.