We get to Midway & the oldest woman pulls out a bottle of Steel Reserve wrapped in a paper bag (I could see the label). Normally, I wouldn’t say anything, but there was a 5 year old there. I went and told the bus driver and she watched the woman. When she started to drink, the driver told her she couldn’t and if the bottle had alcohol in it, she’d have to get off the bus.

The woman’s excuse? It didn’t have beer in it, it had water.

I didn’t see what happened next; my stop was up.

I’m wondering, though–should I have told the bus driver at all or just let the woman go on with her business?

1a. She was trying to join a conference call and her last name was “Hope.”
1b. She was just “hoping” she would finally get into the call.
2. She was making phone calls on behalf of Barack Obama and felt like repeating his campaign message to make her point.

Whether conference call or campaign call, kind of a strange thing to do on the bus don’t you think?

2 minutes later, I see the bus coming so I stand up and wait. He had been smoking and threw his cigarette right on my foot. Not close to it, but on it. He apologizes & said he didn’t mean to hit me. I don’t believe him.

Why do people insist on throwing garbage on the ground when there’s a perfectly good trash can near them?

At Snelling Ave., after the crowd of commuters got on, up sauntered a familiar archetype: the public rapper. In a loud voice he was grunting away some little ditty along the lines of “shooting bitches” and “ f*cking with the sh*t”. As he struted the front of the bus he looked left and right at the other passengers, presumably to ensure that we understood how audacious he was. Yes, a fine representative of his culture upon which my daughter can start to build her future stereotypes.

I have had a special place in my heart for these minstrels ever since one got on the 16 at Vandalia a year or so ago. He was one in a pack of other toughs who regularly board in the afternoon when the High School for Recording Arts (a “second chance” charter school) lets out. His ‘rhyme’ consisted of looking at each person as he swaggered the aisle, hands flashing signs, chanting: “Gunna shoot you in the head with my gat, with my gat. Gunna shoot you in the head with my gat.”

In that instance I called up and spoke with the principal and security director at the school the next day. The security staffer noted that there was nothing they could do about how their students act after hours and agreed “ya, you gotta do what you gotta do” when I suggested (I thought ironically) that if they could not control their kids, then perhaps a conceal-and-carry permit would be my best option.

This time however, with my daughter’s delicate ears at stake, I figured I had better confront the source. So, as he passed, I said: “Hey, watch the language please”.

He stopped. In a loud and rather unfriendly manner he demanded of the bus, “Who said that?”

Silence all around. Although all the passengers were boarded, the driver did not pull away from the curb. It may have been my imagination, but there seemed to be a general tension in the air. There was certainly tightness in my gut. I braced for a whack to the back of the head, made sure my daughter was sitting securely, turned so that I would see anything coming at me, looked him in the eye and replied, “I did.”

Now, if this was 11:00 at night and I was on the 16 I might not have been so bold. But if you can’t stand up for decency during rush hour, on a limited stop line, when can you? Plus, I suspected that if it came to blows, some of my peeps would have my back. A St. Paul City Council member had gotten on a few stops prior and was sitting somewhere back there. Across from me was a neighbor who boards at my stop. There were a few folks with suits who might stand with righteousness if it came to helter-skelter: swinging their briefcases with office-ninja aplomb.

The troubadour got in my face, “You got a problem? I was rappin’”.

“Yes, watch your language please, I have a kid here”, I returned.

He looked my daughter and I over a few times. I tightened my grip on the shoulder strap of my bike bags ready to swing back if it came to blows (incidentally, in addition to my daughter I was traveling with a replacement wheel for my sailboat trailer strapped to the outside of my bicycle panniers, so a hit from it would land like a medieval flail). He looked around the bus gauging the situation.

The bus continued to sit at the stop.

“Well, I was rapping. Didn’t mean to be disrespectin your shortie. Just singing my song”, he scowled, looking mightily pissed off at being called to task.

“Ya, OK” was about the best I could muster as an acceptance for his forced apology.

He turned, walked to the back, and continued ranting along the lines of “telling me what to do. Grumble, grumble, grumble…”.

The bus pulled out.

It took me a little while for the adrenaline to subside. My daughter was wide eyed. We went on to our next lesson.

I sat in the back near the back door so as to easily slip off the bus once I got across campus. However, when the bus stopped the bus driver did not enable the back door to open. So I shouted up to the driver to open it, to no avail. Other riders told the driver to open the door, to no avail. So I fought my way up to the front, and by the time I got there, the driver was starting to pull away from the curb. When I told him he better stop and let me off the driver looked completely baffled. I know buses aren’t meant to be the most convenient form of transport but that level of service would test anyone’s nerves.

Among the bus waiters were a number of recipients waiting for the 16. And what a foul mouthed bunch they were. “G_d d_mn bus, where the h_ll is it?!”… “F_ck this cold” … That sort of thing.

Merry Christmas.

One couple, who seemed to be in their twenties, each has a red bag and were talking about what they got:
She- “Did you get that game on DVD?”
He- “Ya, but it needs a remote control, and there is no way the kid is going to use the DVD player in my room. He can use the one in the living room”
She- “And I want to get the kid more minutes on his cell phone”
He- “Whats for dinner tonight, I want more steak”
She- “I’m making pork chops”
He- “Sh_t, we just had chops, lets have steak again”
She- “Lets stop off at the Big Top to get some 40s”
He- “Hey, give me a cigarette”

So on and so on…

Lesson I learned: today, even the poorest in America seem to live a life of luxury, comparable to the lives of the rich a hundred years ago. Likely better than some medieval lords:

multiple DVD players per house, cell phones for even the kids, steak and other meat most nights, extra money for beer and cigs, cheap and reliable transportation to carry them across town.

Life is good!

It started out innocently enough, when the bus would stop, the driver would say “Have a safe and peaceful evening.” Now, that’s a nice thing to say, but also, they said it EVERY time the bus stopped. It started to become a little annoying.

Eventually, they’d start slipping in other little messages after their salutation..”Have a safe and peaceful evening….They’re taking away your freedom…” Mind you , this is over the bus PA system, and more than one head kind of swiveled around like “What the ___ was that about?”

This went on for a couple of weeks, mostly the innocent chatter and salutations, Until one day, all h_ll broke loose. The driver made their usual “have a safe and peaceful evening. Everybody take care of each other.”….. Then. the following came out: “They’re taking away your freedoms. You need to write to your congressmen to tell them that pharmacies can’t deny birth control to women.” A few people applauded lightly.. Heck, even I agreed with the sentiment, but over the PA system? Emboldened by the apparent show of support, they continued on with a lengthy diatribe about the topic and now we all needed to make sure this didn’t happen, etc. I swear if the bus hadn’t been moving, they’d have started running up and down the aisles with a collection plate.

Thankfully my stop was imminent. After I got off the bus, another passenger and I looked at each other and he said, “Do you ride this bus all the time. Are they always like that?” I had to respond, “Well, this was the worst I’ve seen.. I don’t suspect they’ll be driving for too much longer” After that, I never saw the driver again.

So she wedges her way into the left lane to avoid the jackasses that get stuck in the intersection blocking the right lane of traffic and by an act of god we make it through the light! As we’re trying to get back into the right lane to pull over at the Snelling stop, the guy in front of me has his right arm out the window waving it up and down.

Immediately the driver says into the microphone “Keep your arms inside! What do you think you’re doing?!?! I can see EVERYTHING on this bus…your arms, your shoes, the guy running up to catch the bus…EVERYTHING…this is MY bus!” The guy quickly pulls his arm back in and says “Oh I was just trying to help you signal for the lane change.”

I had to tap her on the shoulder and explain to her that her backpack was in my space ARGH!

I just don’t undertand how people forget that they have 25 lbs swinging around on their back smashing into people!