Urban Public Transportation
I've always loved the public bus and the subway. In DC the strangest and most interesting things happened on public transportation. I got dates, insider information and many, many laughs from it. I also had nick names for all the regulars - the little old lady with the white gloves and pill box purse was "Queen Mum" (honestly, where did she go every day at 8:30am? Couldn't be a desk job...) and the stinky kid who recently moved to DC from Italy was "Shower Allergy".
Now that I'm in Pittsburgh the fun continues of course. I take the same bus every morning and every night to and from work. Pittsburgh has the unique feature of having dedicated busways that are almost like trolly lines so you can hop on in your neighborhood and then the bus gets on the busway and BAM - you're downtown in 20 minutes. I put gas in my car about once a month.
Because I'm taking the "work and back" bus that's generally filled with normal people there aren't really any good specimines for me to name - apart from "80s Hair" and "The Librarian". The best stories usually come from the local busses that schlep the drunks and mentally ill around Oakland.
Today though, was different. Today we had Urberchristian. Thankfully he said or sang nothing, which is rarely the case with these types, but he wore a giant, full body length wood cross made from two 2x4s around his neck. My friend Lisa managed to get this quick cell phone shot just before he got off the bus. Than she said to me,
“Wouldn’t that hurt, having a 2 x 4 slamming into your junk
every step?” My answer was “perhaps that’s
how he pays penance for his sins.”
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