Bus Update: Chaos Reigns

A number of you have asked for an update on my friends on the bus. So, it is a great time to update you on a veritable tragedy for me and my fellow riders. You may recall from my first post describing my friends on my bus that one vignette was about my friend Jean. In short, Jean is like the bus mother. And sheriff. She regulates. She is the judge, jury, and executioner of her fellow bus riders. It is a very important role. As I wrote in a previous post, Jean and I once had a real conversation on a very long (stuck in traffic) bus ride. I won’t rehash the whole conversation, but one key detail she shared with me was that she was biding her time with her loser boss and dead-end job so she could retire and write romance novels (maybe I made that last part up; I can’t remember). That put me on high alert. If Jean retires and no longer requires the bus to get to Seattle who will regulate the many unruly behaviors frequently seen on the bus? I looked deep inside myself and realized I was not up for the role of bus sheriff. I have neither the mettle nor brassiness to do what she does. People see Jean, with her platinum hair, horn-rimmed glasses and clogs, and they know it is time for decorum. Playground horsing around could result in a serious talking to; perhaps the person rebuked is reduced to tears. I cried once when Jean called me out. No, not really. But, I wanted to cry. Sorry I am getting off topic here. Bottom line is that I went through a hypothetical that caused me severe anxiety. The kind of anxiety that one might experience on airplanes requiring a Xanax or something.

Fast forward to today. I have not seen Jean in some time. I kept saying to myself, “don’t despair, she’ll come back.” The days ticked by. The days then became weeks. Now, I think we’re realistically talking about months. Jean has done it. She has retired. She has left us to our own devices. But, I find that wholly unsatisfactory. When I grappled with the hypothetical of Jean leaving her assumed duties on the bus, I believed that when the day came should would leave us with a rousing speech. Something akin to the Saint Crispin’s Day speech in Shakespeare’s Henry V. I thought through such an inspirational farewell her heir would feel his or her call to keep us safe and protect our riders’ rights for many years to come. But, alas, she is clearly gone and she left us without so much as a toodle-oo. My deepest fears are realized and I now have to move through the stages of grief. I denied it for some time, but I have now acknowledged she is gone. Really gone. So, next comes anger. I had an angry spell. I told a guy who wanted to sit in the middle space on a three person seat, “no way man, go somewhere else, can’t you see I am grieving.” Then, came the tears. They welled up and then it was like a dam broke and there was no stopping them. I then found myself bargaining with the bus gods, “bring us someone to keep this place in order. It is chaos. If you do, I’ll never yell at a middle seat requestor again!” Before I could blink, I had passed through denial, anger, and bargaining. Now, it seems, I am depressed. The fourth stage of grief. There’s no sense trying to deny it. I am depressed. Where have you gone Jean? The only consoling thing is that I know acceptance comes next and perhaps I will find the peace I seek without Jean. I hope whatever lusty novel you’re writing really takes off. I know it will, this is Jean we’re talking about.

So, here we are without Jean. Perhaps it is hard for an outsider to see why this is so problematic. I understand that. Until I became a lifer on the bus I would not have understood the importance of Jean’s function. The yeoman’s work she did for each of us selflessly. Well, maybe not completely selflessly, because Jean always used her power to get a good seat and to enforce her own idiosyncrasies as rules, but yeoman’s work for sure. Let me try to describe some things that Jean would have done to make our rides safe and pleasant for all riders.

For example, last week a man stood up while the bus was still moving. I know. You’re just as aghast as I am. Frankly, he should have known better, but the more sobering fact is that there was no one to correct him. Had Jean been there he would have felt it. She might have reinstituted corporal punishment, taking him over her knee, for such a blatant disregard for safety procedures. These are the moments where you wish you really did have a guardian angel and you hope this crazy man does too. In some ways, I feel my guardian angel has been taken away from me. Jean where are you? We need you back! Now! Before Mr. Walkabout-whilst-the-bus-is-in-motion Man bites the dust causing his young children to cry for their Daddy flooding the earth with their tears.

The other thing that Jean does is protect bus riders’ rights. She looks out for people crossing boundaries of politeness, personal space, and the general peace that should be observe while we travel to our various duties in the great city of Seattle. For instance, word on the street is that Ms. Ana, another important character on the bus from a couple of other posts, may have acquired a 1950s-era supercomputer. You’ve heard this spiel before: “your smartphone has more computing power than a supercomputer from yesteryear that filled 5 rooms.” Well, as you can imagine Ms. Ana felt this sort of full-size tech was much more reliable and well tested than her PalmPilot she was testing a while back. So, we started to see an increase in luggage from Ms. Ana. Come to find out she wanted to do some supercomputing on the bus clogging up the walkway with stacks of computing chassis with big yellow and red blinking lights (like on a Christmas tree or something). Jean would have stopped this cold. But, again she is not with us on the bus anymore. Ms. Ana is bound to take other liberties with her crazy technologies, but it is we who remain to take this on. I am no match for Ms. Ana either. Trouble looms.

Another major issue on the topic of riders’ rights is music. Many riders have neither the concern for their own eardrums nor their fellow riders’ right to a peaceful ride to Seattle when it comes to the volume of their personal music. I remember the time that Lars, a Swedish Thrash Metal enthusiast, had his music up way too loud. Jean marched down the isle, pulled his ear buds from his ears, threw them on the floor, stomped them with her clogs, and spit in Lars’ eye. It must be said Lars is of full Viking extraction that came over to Minnesota from Sweden and then continued on to the Pacific Northwest. He is about 6’8’’ and has been seen wearing a helmet with horns. So, most of us are keen to leave him alone. Not Jean. She is 5’2’’ on her tippy toes, but jam packed with chutzpah. She’s afraid of no one. Lars was made an example, and since then no one dares play their music beyond the lowest levels.

One thing you would not think a rider would need to worry about is keeping bus drivers in check, but if you think that you would be wrong! Jean understood that. She knew that if there was not someone watching their every move we might end up in Puyallup judging the livestock competitions at the State Fair. Or maybe if those good-for-nothing drivers don’t have someone watching their stop approaches they could be lurchy and bumpy. Worse still, if they don’t know the route yet to hit all the stops just right, a rider might have to walk another ten steps to their final destination. Can you imagine, ten more steps? Could be the end of that one guy who eats a lot of Twinkies (now that they are back on store shelves). Jean had tremendous foresight. She is always looking 5, 10, maybe even 26 moves down the chessboard. She is always on high alert. Every day is game day for her. I once saw her take 5 minutes to address a misstep by a brand new bus driver. Jean knew, like the mother hen she is, that unaddressed mistakes become habits and then we’re all hosed, especially Jean who is not keen to walk those extra ten steps to go and spend time with her loser boss who insists on telling her chauvinist stories all day.

So, in short, a new era has arrived to the commuter bus. The new era is one of utter chaos and anarchy. I don’t know how long this period of uncertainty will last. It could be months; it could be years. The question is does anyone with Jean’s strength of character feel the call to take up Jean’s mantle to keep the bus in order? This question of Jean’s successor is up there with other serious geopolitical concerns like will China’s economy slow so much that the world slips into a global recession or worse? When will Vladimir Putin wrestle a bear on pay-per-view to fund Yellow Fever vaccine purchases for children? How do we slow the onslaught of global warming and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign? World leaders must unite to solve all of these problems, but I, perhaps selfishly, hope they will prioritize the identification of Jean’s successor above other lesser concerns. Wish me well my friends it is a war zone on my bus these days.