Bus wanker

I ride the bus a lot. Having no car will do that to you.

For the most part, riding the bus is great. You get to zone out and swipe through Instagram as you cruise in the bus lane past bumper-to-bumper traffic. I also love pulling on the 'stop request' cord. In Edinburgh it's just a plastic button, so you can imagine how delighted I am to get to pull the cord again. So much more satisfying. Choo choo!

Image by Takeshita kenji via Wikimedia Commons

There are some things I don't love, however.

• The migraine-inducing air conditioning on full blast. 
• The waiting at bus stops.
• The man swearing aggressively at the driver who gave him flack for being a quarter short. 
• The lack of seat belts. Why aren't there seat belts?

 In high school my friends Dana, Connie and I would regularly take the bus to a thai food restaurant in Bellevue named Jasmine's. It was before anyone east of Lake City even knew about thai food—I swear. We would all order Pad Thai, then jasmine tea and fried ice cream for dessert. It was so grown up.

During one bus journey, a diet coke exploded in my shoulder bag. It had been jostling around in there when my compass—you know, those things you used to draw circles in geometry—pierced it. Stabbed it right through the aluminum! DC sprayed everywhere. I had to get up and ask the driver if he had any napkins. It was HIGHLY embarrassing. 

Another time, Char, Francie and I—ages 14 and 10—tried to take the bus to Bellevue but we got on the wrong one and wound up in Burien. Both start with "B", but other than that, we couldn't have gotten it more wrong. 

That's about it for bus stories! Other than the time a dear friend of mine got banned from all Northshore School District buses for threatening to kill our bus driver. That's the same driver that got told to "F--K OFF" by an otherwise gentle soul when she told him he couldn't bring his didgeridoo on board. 

Oh, and there was that one time in junior high that someone threw someone else's jeans out the bus window. Ninth graders be cray. 

Byeeeeee, 

Madgey


P.S. Here's Dana and I at Jasmine's (or just 'Jasmine' it looks like). Thanks for the photo, Dana!

My shoulder bag (aka 'satchel') also made it in the snap.