The Wheels on the Bus

My car is broken at the moment, so I had to ride the bus home from work today. It made me remember a few things I already knew:

1) People who ride the bus are by and large decent, but there's always one jerk in the bunch. For the most part they're fine people: quiet, minding their own business, generally absorbed in their own affairs, iPods, newspapers, or conversations with the other people living inside their skulls. Still, there always has to be one person who wants to be the center of attention. Some kid I saw today was tripping old people as they walked by. When one lady said something to him, he lost his cool. It was a rather pathetic spectacle.

2) Bus drivers are generally not the most polite or intelligent people in the world. I think the last time I rode a bus was about a year ago. At that time, I stepped onto a bus that was apparently ending it's run. I was about to ask the bus driver a question when she made a shooing motion with her hand and commanded "Off my bus." As I tried to interject that I only had one simple question, she reiterated her order. I tried to mention that that is not the most polite thing to do for a person in a public service profession, or at least to affirm that I hadn't been rude to her, but if I hadn't stepped off as quickly as I did I might have lost my nose to the slamming bus door. This was at a terminal, so of course, the bus I wanted was hers. She parked the bus for awhile and rolled it to the opposite end of the station. She saw me running to catch it, slowed down, realized I was the guy who had questioned her politeness, and proved me right by slamming the door a second time and peeling out.
Today it was something much more simple. I was sort of lost and confused after getting off at the wrong stop, so I walked up to a bus that wasn't mine and asked the guy a question:

"Does the number 68 stop here?"
My question was answered with another question.
"Do you see a sign that says 68?"
"Well, no, but that's why I'm asking you." I briefly considered adding "because you are a professional coach conductor while I am a barely literate rube who has no right to trouble you with his problems" but decided against it.

The point, I think, is that you should never ask a bus driver questions. Burdening them with your ignorance is a cardinal sin in BusDriverLandia. Do what I did instead: carry your ignorance as you walk home. Let it distract you from the various marginalized people you run into on that walk, and the smell of sewage wafting up from the street. Then go get your car fixed, for fuck's sake.