Taking the Bus

So having just gotten back from vacation I hadn't taken the bus in over a week. I had forgotten how tired of the bus I was. Sigh.

Now I have been a user of public transit a lot longer than I was a car owner. And said car was a Piece of Shit Ford. I am firm believer that it is generally a good way to travel, it's better for the environment and is quite a bit cheaper than the threefold expense of owning a car. The $60 a month I spend on a bus pass wouldn't even pay for gas let alone insurance or a car payment. In bigger cities the trains and subways have been awesome ways to get around and even the bus generally affords decent reading time.

That said. I'm really tired of taking the bus. And what follows is going to make me sound like an unmitigated snob, but so be it.

I got on the bus this morning and it wasn't too bad. A weird lady loudly chewing gum got on soon after me, but sat far enough way that it wasn't that bothersome. Then a lady got on and sat directly in front of me. Harmless enough until her smell hit me. She was drenched in some sort of nasty chemical perfume that was some weird combination of fruit and spice. It was terrible. Soon after a slightly smelly (and as I came to find out, dirty) man got on and sat down next to me. He sat 'man style' legs spread and definitely crowding me. Then he pulled out one of those industrial freezer bags. It looked like it was full of electrical cords, to my dismay it turned out to be full of black licorice. I hate black licorice. It tastes foul and smells worse. So now, not only am I trying very hard not to breathe in the perfume from the lady in front of me, I'm trying not to breathe in the smell of the licorice and ignore the entirely gross sound of the guy chewing the licorice. I'm also trying to occupy less and less space in the seat as the guy is making no effort to not touch me. I appreciate that I am a big girl, but it's not that hard to avoid touching the person next to you. I was a little breathing, shrinking ball of misery by the time the 30 minute ride was up. Then when the guy got off ahead of me I noticed his pants were dirty and covered in a bunch of white dust. I look down and sure enough my pants are now covered up the side where he said in white dirt too. The 2nd bus was incredibly overcrowded for a weekday afternoon and just as miserable a ride as the first. In all fairness the bus ride home wasn't too bad this evening although the bus stop wait for my first bus did feature an older heavy set man drinking straight from a large brown liquor store bag.

Ugh. I'm very tired of being stuck with public transportation. In Halifax public transportation is largely full of the old, crazy and Spryfield like poor with screaming children. There are a handful of students and mostly normal people thrown in for good measure. (I warned you I'd end up sounding like a snob). The bitterness and snobbery is really more my fault than anything else and stems mostly from my two main problems with the bus: the crowding and the people who take the bus.

I hate crowds and I have an extreme dislike of people in my personal space. This means than whenever a stranger sits next to me I am immediately uncomfortable and slightly stressed out. This only gets compounded by the jerks who make no attempt to give you space. If I'm going to take the outside seat you can be damn sure I'm going to make every effort possible to NOT sit on or right up against the person next to me. You can also be sure that I will NOT be squeezing my ass in between two people in a spot that was not meant for my ass. I am however frequently the victim of people who have no problem with plopping down way too close or some fat lady (or man) who thinks it's OK to squeeze herself in between two people seated with a buffer between. Seriously lady? That seat you just forced yourself into has enough space for a 14 year old. And not a big one. If your butt don't fit, don't sit. That should be a bus rule. Exceptions to this rule: Really old people, pregnant and handicapped people. They probably need to sit. When this happens I'll usually stand up. When I'm stuck in the inside seat I generally just cower in misery trying not to scowl or elbow them until they get up or my stop arrives.

The people who take the bus is a pretty broad term for all the bad bus behaviour I can't stand. This refers mostly to people who listen to their ipods too loud, are generally loud or disruptive or are obnoxiously chewing something. Usually gum. I realize my weird anti-chewing fetish is more my own neurosis than theirs, but it's just plain gross to not close your mouth when chewing. It's uncalled for to have excessively personal conversations at top volume on the bus. No one wants to hear about your friends abortion, where you keep your knife or your breakup fight with your boyfriend on your iphone (all true things). If I'm sitting in the middle of the bus and I can hear your Eminem song and your at the back of the bus, your mp3 player is too loud! There is a lady who takes the first bus in the morning who always sits next to me if the seat is free. She's a bleach blond with no concept of personal space who chews her gum, at 7 in the morning, with her mouth open. It's gotten to the point where when I take the first bus in the morning I commit bus behaviour crime and place my backpack on the empty seat next to me when we get to her stop.

Phew! That was a lot of somewhat incoherent rambling. I could probably go on, but you get the idea. Sometimes good things do happen in transit. One night this past winter I was in the middle of an almost 5 hour bus journey home during a snowstorm and I talked to an elderly black man for a bit who told me about his new shoes and his beautiful wife who passed away. He kept a photo of her in his briefcase and thought she was prettier than Halle Berry. He said he was studying law at Dal. I'm not sure how much of what he said was true, but listening to him speak of his love for his wife was pretty cool. Taking the bus everyday you get to recognise people and I've seen babies turn into toddlers, turn into little kids. There is almost always something or someone to see or listen to. And I get almost 3 hours a day of free reading time.

Yes, I said three hours. What would be an approximately 45 minute a day commute to and from work is about three hours a day on the bus in Halifax.

What does this all mean? Nothing special really. Someday I'll have a car and won't be able to rant about the bus anymore. I might miss that. It can be fun to have something to bitch about. Plus I could fill a book with transit tales.