My PAT Posse

Look at that PAT bus in this photo. Look at how clean it looks. Look at the people boarding the bus in a neat, orderly, speedy fashion (they're so fast they're blurry). Those people look like they would probably smell pretty good. Even up close. They look pretty happy, too. That bus must have pulled up to that stop right at its scheduled time. And, now that I'm looking more closely at the photo, I notice that there's no sleet, rain, snow, or hail pummeling the nice folks at the stop, either. This is obviously Not. My. Bus.

Now, let me state right here for the record, that I LOVE public transportation. In my dream world, there would be no private vehicles. Well, presidents would have them - can't imagine Obama on my bus - but normal, everyday folks like you and me would not only not have a car, we would not even have the slightest need or desire for one. The public transportation system would be so fast, efficient, convenient, and cost-effective, people would laugh at the thought of owning their own vehicle. "Hahaha! What do you mean, 'my own car'? Why on earth would I want the hassle of owning and upkeep on my own vehicle when I can take the bus, train, light rail, or metro so conveniently?"

So why do I put up with public transportation in its current state? Three reasons: 1) Cheapness 2) Laziness and 3) The Empowering Feeling of Moral Self-Righteousness. According to my calculations, it would cost me over $1,000 per year to drive my own car. (and this was even before gas rose to its current $3.59.9/gallon). Even imagining some future scenario in which $1,000 is "not a big deal" to me, I'm still so super cheap that I would suffer the bus for that thousand bucks. Let's imagine me smashed into an amazingly over-crowded bus nose-to-armpit with one of my fellow travelers - my mantra? onethousanddollarsonethousanddollars onethousanddollars and I'm cheap enough that it pulls me through. Now, the laziness is just me being too lazy to drive my own car. Why drive when I can sit like a chauffeur-driven princess, reading my novel or gazing at the scenery? And finally, I do love the moral self-righteousness that using public transportation provides me. I don't feel as lofty as I did when I was a bicycle commuter but this is almost as good. I look for any opportunity to slip my affinity for public transportation into a conversation. A co-worker asks, "So, which lot do you park in?" and that is always a good segue. "Oh, hahaha [little self-deprecating laugh here] I don't drive to work. [pause for dramatic effect] I take the bus." And I can just see the other person thinking, "Huh, she must be a lot tougher than she looks."

The best and worst part of the bus is, of course, the people. This includes the driver (my regular driver who I adore since she always greets me like an old friend, "How you doin' today sweetie?") as well as the other passengers. There are the run of the mill irritating people - the ones who listen to their music too loud, the ones who talk on their cell phones too loud, the ones who take up two seats, the ones who argue with the driver, the ones who smell like dog/cigarettes/fried food/BO - and then there are the crazy people. There's only one recurrent crazy lady on my bus and I know that I should feel pity for her. I do feel pity for a lot of the elderly passengers on the bus. But the crazy lady just absolutely overwhelms me with the scope and breadth of her craziness.

The thing is, there are just too many well-meaning folks who somehow just by looking at her don't realize the extent of the craziness and they actually respond to her attempts to engage them in conversation. As soon as some poor sap responds to her query, "And what did you have for breakfast? Did you have breakfast today?" next thing you know she's taking the whole bus on an edge-of-your-seat ride into Crazytown. We've barely passed three stops and she's off on, "Do you know how to not get pregnant? Do you know what you should do to not get pregnant?" (Nevermind she's 75 if she's a day) To which some fool will actually respond, "No, how's that?" "Well the thing is, you have to stop masturbating. That's the thing. No masturbating. [pause] It's a pity." All delivered in sing-song crazy talk that nothing can block out. Her other favorite topics are: defecating in a can, how she got her boyfriend, and why she missed her period (too much masturbation?)

But then there are other folks on the bus that I really enjoy and their mere presence on the bus reassures me that all is right with the world. Russian University of Pittsburgh professor who uses his little laptop the whole way into town, great big friendly guy with the mustache, giagantic woman who stands in the aisle wearing giant headphones and knitting, blind guy with the walker, coffee-sports page-sunglasses guy, and my new best bus friend, Joe. Yes, we've formally introduced ourselves to each other. We've taken our bus friendship "to the next level" as they say. I see Joe every Wednesday when he takes the bus into town to the University of Pittsburgh to take a class. He sat down next to me one day as I was reading "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" and said, "I didn't like that one as much. I couldn't get into it," and thus began our bus frienship. I look forward to our book chats every week and, in fact, it was Joe who introduced me to the library book club that I joined last month.

Oh, there are days when I'm freezing and the bus just doesn't come or the days that I miss the bus by a matter of meters and I'm left at the curb with tears of frustration stinging the backs of my eyeballs or the days I grit my teeth as the crazy lady just goes on and on. There are those days. But then I think about how I'm saving my wallet and saving the world and I go back to squinting at the horizon waiting for my bus and it's all worth it.