On the bus

Bus was very low key this morning - 6 am, same as always, but the energy level was low. The bus was making a lot of loud, clanking noises - kind of like what you hear on an airplane when the landing gear goes up or down. This kept happening during high speed braking - figured our landing gear would just quit and we'd have to walk the rest of the way. Perhaps the silence on the bus was a unified effort to keep the bus running. You've got to figure that everyone is hearing the noises and most are probably thinking along the same lines -bus breakdown, what do we do. That should produce a collective, unspoken bus prayer - Please don't let the bus break down. All that energy and karma being sent to the mechanical parts; it has to keep it going.

There was a young man on the bus when I got on. Had his bicycle helmet and was reading the paper. The bus took its usual right turn onto Rural and stopped for a passenger. The young man looked up, appeared startled, and asked the driver what bus is this? The driver said 66 and the young man announced, I need to get to Kyrene and Guadalupe. The driver told him he should get off, cross the street and catch the 92 - it would take him to Kyrene. The young man, in a not-so-very-friendly tone of voice, said "I'll just take my bike and ride there!" So what was that about? He was the dipstick that got on the wrong bus, or at least didn't bother to check which route he needed. Such arrogance - as if the whole bus and route were his to demand and order about at his whim. Assume we won't see him on the route again.

Since there was so much clatter of bus parts, think I'll start recording the bus number - just curious how often the same one is used on the route and if it's noisy every time. Today we had #4133.