I took the bus home yesterday. Pity me.

The BBQ Pit
1

So I get on the bus and it’s a bit crowded. I have to stand. No prob, I’ll just put on my mp3 player and listen to the Queen of the Damned soundtrack.

A person in a window seat gets up to disembark from the bus and an ostensibly kind gentleman offers me the seat, even though he’s closer. I thank him kindly but decline because I hate sitting next to the window on the bus. He offers the seat once more and, again, I decline politely. Marilyn Manson’s singing Redeemer which contains the line /you can’t fuck with me/. Nice try buddy, but I see right through ‘kind gentleman act’ to your evil plot to get me trapped between the window and the, uh, pleasantly plump woman in the aisle seat. You can’t fuck with me, indeed.

Two stops later, the person in front of whom I’m standing gets up to exit the bus. I gladly take his seat. Another two stops later the person sitting next to me gets up to get off at his stop. I remain in the aisle seat because, as I said earlier, I don’t like the window seat.

A few moments later a lady motions that she’d like to sit down, I swing my body so it’s perpendicular to the aisle so she can shimmy in. This isn’t good enough, though. I get the feeling she expects me to slide over.

“Aren’t you going to slide over?” she asks.

“No,” says I, “but you’re more than welcome to sit here.” I motion to the vacant seat next to me.

“You’re supposed to move over.”

“I don’t want to. You can sit here, though.”

She huffs something else and proceeds to the rear of the bus. I didn’t hear her because, aptly enough, Chester Bennington is screaming /why won’t you die/ in my ear. (I swear the soundtrack for Queen of the Damned is just perfect for riding the fucking bus.)

A few blocks down the road, a gentleman gets on and sits directly in front of me. A few nanoseconds later, his stench hits me with such force it was akin to a punch in the face. I swear it was as if he was a bum in the middle of a makeover. He’d already been shaved and had his hair cut but he was on his way to get his wardrobe revamp and had to take the bus. Good lord, it was an acrid mix of urine, year-old B.O. and some other unholy variable. I couldn’t escape the odor no matter how hard I tried. I turned to the left. It was there, waiting for me. I turned to the right. It was already there, mocking my feeble attempt at elusion. I held my fingers in front of my nose. It laughed at my makeshift fort and invaded with little opposition. (All of this, by the way, takes place to the tune of Disturb’s Down with the Sickness. I really dislike that song, but it was apropos to the situation at hand)

In a final attempt to escape this seemingly omnipresent cloud of funk, I vacate my seat and (sorry Rosa) retreat to the back of the bus. Ah…much better.

The rest of the ride was pretty much uneventful.

I hate the bus. Hate it, hate it, hate it. I want my fucking car back. Is it theft if you take your own car?

2

Oh this brings back memories. My personal favorite was that great big … greassssy spot on the window, right at eye level. You just hoped it was some kind of pomade or Jheri-Curl and not actual Unwashed Head Slime, and that there wasn’t any of whatever it was on the seat you wanted to lean back into.

Are noseplugs an option? A nice medieval censer? Maybe if you wear your SMDB Tinfoil Hat™ no one will fuck with you?

You so have my sympathies.

3

Juanita, you should move down here; our buses are pleasant for the most part. I rarely drive to work because I can’t afford to park here.

4

I’m with ya Juanita, I’m with ya.

However, I bring a book which I’m marvelous at escaping into. Yesterday someone I knew and liked sat down beside me and was there for 30 minutes before I even noticed.

What you need to do is get a small dog. You then pay the fare for the dog, and he gets the window seat. Hey - he paid right? At least, this works for me. And lest anyone get bent out of shape, I always sit at the back, on the second level, while the accessability seats are all at the front. Additionally, if the bus were very full, or there was a disabled person that had somehow made it to the second level I would give them my seat. Of course, then they would have to sit next to my dog, and he barfs, but I guess begers can be choosers.

Any cases of SARS down there? Perhaps you could donn a SARS mask to help with odor and remain inconspicious.

5

Ugh, emily. The smell of curl activator makes me ill. That gross spot on the window is just wrong. I’d like more information on the SDMB Tinfoil Hat, though.

Jeff, it’s funny you should mention moving to NoVa. I drove through a very nice part of Alexandria recently on my way to Regan National Airport to pick up my son. The houses were old townhomes and very, very nice. Just what I’d be looking for in a neighborhood. I got the feeling, though, they were a bit pricey.

6

Our buses are pretty decent as well… I don’t mind riding them at all. In fact, in downtown Seattle, I have more pity for the person driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic, watching them get frustrated as I fly by on my bike or relax in the bus, reading my book.

Well, not that much pity, really… I’m enjoying myself too much.

Sounds like a pretty rotten bus ride, Juanita. Right up there with the buses I used to struggle with in Phoenix. Yet another reason I’m very glad to live right where I do.

7

Unwashed stench is worse, but overly perfumed (as was the woman in the window seat next to me on a standing room only bus yesterda) is nauseating too. So there was the perfumed lady on my left next to me or the guy with B.O. with his sweating arm pit over my head hanging on to the luggage rack.

8

Yeah, proabably at least 225K. The average cost of a single-family home in Arlington County recently went over 500K. Not cheap around here but it is nice in most places.

9

I personally hate sliders, I want that window seat so I can look out into the world and forget I’m on a 'ucken, well usually train, but I guess it’s the same as bus in this instance.

You got their 1st, and you could claim whatever seat you want.

10

Actually, it was Seattle’s #7 that seemed to have the highest incidence of great big greassssy spots for me. Maybe that route is just extra-greassssy. Or maybe it was back in my day…

My pleasure. This is from the “Are scalar weapons for real?” thread.

11

Sheesh, you should move to Anchorage, our city buses (a JOKE called the “People Mover”), is a city subsidized service.

Riders pay a small fee, and part of it is covered by the city. I dont’ know how much, but I KNOW that the riders cannot POSSIBLY be supporting the 20 or 30 route bus system (including one that yay :rolleyes: goes “all the way” out to Eagle River and Wasilla (10 miles out of Anc and 40 miles respectively).

Trouble is, the routes suck. No one ever uses the bus system. Unless you live and work on one route, it’s such a waste of time (and freezing in the cold waiting for “transfers”) that most people will do anything to avoid them.

Just about anytime of day, when you see a bus, it has, at most, 10 people on board.

To commute to Eagle River (10 miles north of Anch) would require a person to rise at 4am, catch a 5 am bus to be in Anch by 6am, arrive at their job about an hour to an hour and a half early, then leave work before close of business, and arrive home at about 8 or 9 pm. And that’s the only time the bus to that area is available. No “every half an hour” or “every 10 minutes” here. Routes in the city itself are almost as bad. Buses stop every hour or hour and a half, and most require 2-3 transfers.

As you can imagine, only vagrants and those who are MOST desparate for transportation use it. And the occasional unfortunate college student or three.

Your bus system might be crowded and unpleasant, but at least it’s not a huge waste of your tax dollars, and commiting time.

12

::totally clueless car-owning suburbanite who only ventures forth into the Big Scary City for O’s and Ravens games::

Baltimore has buses?

:wink:

13

I happen to be in Mesa, Arizona, right now. Extreme gas shortage due to a tiny, little problem with a pipeline. Lots of gas stations are closed, and at others, the lines are blocks long or the gas is $4.00/gallon. The governor is requesting people use public transportation until the problem is resolved. Huh. I bet SHE’s not using public transportation and has absolutely no problem fueling up. And it’s for reasons like the ones given in the above posts that I will absolutely not be using public transportation, either.

14

You must not live in the United States if you can take a dog on a bus. That wouldn’t be allowed here in a million years.

15

Unless it’s a guide dog.

But then, faking a guide dog would be kinda shitty, I suppose.

16

You can’t take a dog on a city bus in the US? Seriously?

17

Under no circumstances ever feel tempted to buy an SUV or similar gas guzzler. Just turn the volume up and let your thoughts expand and focus on clean air.

Think of global warming. Your Senators, your Governor and your President, plus their hirelings, all have to be aware of this constantly. Just as you already seem to be.

Our leaders, and their hirelings, all use a specialised sub set of the peoples’ rapid mass transit system just like you. The only difference is, the grease marks on the windows and such get cleaned off more regularly.

They do the right thing by the environment, so do you, just as all good citizens should.

You are a person with true grit. Before, and especially after.

18

Juanita,

Kudos to you on using the Bus. I know it was forced upon you, but the bus is the true form of transport of the proletariat :smiley:

Seriously, I take the bus as often as possible, because although it can be a bit shitty at times, it beats sitting in a car stuck in traffic.

19

I use the bus everyday. I know the pain of the smeared window and what deep down it indicates. I can close me eyes right now and smell the sharp, sweet aroma of the drunk sat across the aisle this morning. The rattle of empty Coke cans, the stickiness underfoot, the constant alertness required to avoid transferring used chewing gum from the back of seats to my knees.

Still better than the bleedin’ tube, mind.

20

Yeah, I’m with the woman. This is one of my pet peeves. Just slide the fuck over. No one cares if you don’t like the window seat. Are you one of those people who, if you’re in the aisle seat and the person in the window wants to get up, don’t stand up to let them out, but just sort of move your legs over to the side a little? That pisses me off even more. How lazy do you have to be to not get up for five seconds unless you’re really old or handicapped? Gah.

Mass transit sucks. Off to do my time in the purgatory that is the Orange Line during rush hour.