Wednesday, June 09, 2004

People On the Bus…

People On the Bus...

As I was riding on the express bus home last night, we hit some traffic. Being a normal ordinary person, I figure there is a wreck or normal congestion, maybe the bridge was up, and that was why we were stopped. Sirens and police cars whizzing by confirmed my initial thoughts.
Fortunately, for my amusement, I was sitting rather close to a person who had "connections" and did not feel the need to sit quietly and suffer with the rest of us. No - Sarah with Metro Traffic needed to get to the bottom of what was happening! Sarah with Metro Traffic proceeded to make several phone calls, one about every 2 minutes or so.
"Hello? Can you hear me? This is Sarah. Yes. I am sitting on a bus on 15th Ave in the Interbay Area and there seems to be some sort of accident. We are surrounded by Fire Rescue and Police. We haven't moved. It's a parking lot. Can you tell me what is going on? Yes, but it seems to be bigger than a basic traffic incident. Yes, well I will let you know when I get closer."
Note: Surrounded by Fire Rescue means the Fire Marshal drove by. Surrounded by Police means two squad cars. Not moving means slowly inching towards the scene. And really - didn't she just tell the people on the phone what was going on? How would they know?
"Hello? This is Sarah. Yes. I just talked to John and I am stuck in traffic on 15th, there seems to be a major accident, have you heard anything about it?" "This is Sarah with Metro Traffic. Yes. Do you have any information on the backup on 15th in the Interbay Area? No? Huh. Okay."
"This is Sarah. Perhaps you should do a fly by. We are not moving. Yes. Yes. I will let you know what I see when we get there."
Note: Traffic was bad. What is normally a 20 minute bus ride took almost an hour. We finally passed the scene. It wasn't pretty. A motorcycle and a car had collided. :( I saw a recap of the scene on the news this morning.
"This is Sarah. Yes. Yes. We just passed the accident. A car and motorcycle collided. They have Gilman closed completely and 15 is down to one lane. No. No I don't know where it is blocked from. Perhaps you should get out your map and look. Yes. Yes. Alright."

As all of this was going on, there was a kid sitting across from me. I couldn't help laughing, this woman just kept calling and calling. The kid saw me laughing and was laughing too. I could tell he had wanted to... he was just waiting for someone else to see the hilarity in what this woman was doing.

This morning I caught a later bus than normal. I was standing at the bus stop and this woman came up, sat down near me and started rifling through her belongings. I tried to not pay attention. Really it isn't any of my business. Then she started talking to me.
Woman:"All these pills. I have to remember to take all these pills."
Me: "huh"
W: "I never used to have high blood pressure. Then I went to the Doctor and my blood pressure was all the way up to 187/160. I don't know what happened. I eat well. I take good care of myself..."
M: "Huh"
Then the kid from the bus, the one I was laughing with the night before skates up.
W: "Hey there boy. How you doing?"
Kid: "Good"
W: "Where you go to school?"]
K: "Central. I am a sophomore"
W: "Do you do drugs?"
K: "Um, No..."
W: "You know I was talking to these boys the other day. They were drug dealers. Dropped out of school. You know I started drinking when I was eight...eighteen that's right. First it was just beer. But then I got into the hard liquor. That led to cigarettes and let me tell you it is a hard habit to break! Of course with the cigarettes came the pot. After that I started drinking scotch. Well and smoking the crack. You know what that is all about. I had to hit rock bottom before I was able to raise myself up again. Jesus saved me! Yes he did. Do you go to church boy?"
Note: By this time the kid was looking very uncomfortable and kept looking up the street for the bus. I wasn't any help as I was afraid if I showed interest she would start grilling me about something...
K: "Yeah, I go with my parents or sometimes with my brother..." (He looked really scared)
W: "I tell you... Jesus will save you!..."

She was going to say more but the bus came. The Kid bolted for the bus and walked all the way to the back of the bus. Thankfully the woman didn't follow him.


Posted by Autumn Goddess on 06/09 at 07:35 AM
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