Public Transportation and the Apocalypse
Five O’clock, time to punch out.
I walk to the bus stop, counting the change in my pocket- I don’t have 75 cents, I’ll have to pay a full dollar.
I usually dread taking the bus home. The time I spend walking to the stop I daydream about buying my next car- maybe a Jeep Grand Cherokee, or maybe a steal on a ’73 dodge charger I saw last night on craigslist: $3,500 and it “runs and drives.” Today though I wasn’t thinking about those because the atmosphere is distracting- the sunlight isn’t right. Fires roaring up in thirteen places now, all surrounding LA and the smoke has cast a haze over the sun making 5:00 in the evening look like an early dawn where everything has an orange-yellowish tint. The sun itself looks a blood red and evokes a hellish feeling when coupled with the 95 degree weather and unbearable humidity - the apocalypse must be upon us.
As I board the bus I’m pleasantly surprised to find that the dollar bill machine is broken and I score a free ride; I shouldn’t complain, however after only two months riding the metro you easily find flaws in public transportation. Mainly it’s the people. I sit down at a window seat thinking there’s no way the bus will fill up enough for someone to sit next to me, but I’m proven wrong at the next stop. Twenty or so people, all of them overweight, board the bus- someone sat next to me. Now I’m never one to judge another but America needs to get it’s shit together with the “obesity epidemic.” Scratch that, bullshit it’s an epidemic, take care of yourself damnit. You can’t catch fat like you can a cold. I only use such strong words because I am now pressed uncomfortably next to a window because the lady next to me won’t fit into one seat. I want to turn to her and tell her a story of my everyday morning:
I skate several blocks from one bus stop to catch another and usually wind up waiting for ten or fifteen minutes. In that time I see the number three stop across the street going the opposite direction. A majority of the people exiting the bus are college students as SMC is several blocks from this corner. Now every morning I make the same observation, and before anyone has even plotted a clear course after stepping off the bus I already know who will go where. There are only two main groups- one group crosses the road towards me and makes a right to walk to the next bus that takes them directly to SMC, the others make a left and walk the six or so blocks to the same location. The reason I know who is going where is not simply a question of physique. As you would expect of course the ones who choose to walk are generally thinner and more attractive people, but what I recently have noticed is that that isn’t the main giveaway: the expressions on their face. Those who make that left and choose to take the extra time and walk never fail to be the only ones with smiles on their faces at seven in the morning getting off a crowded bus.
I admire that and I want desperately to tell this lady next to me on this bus that her life would be better if she took the stairs every once in a while- but I digress: I need not worry about her happiness as the apocalypse is at hand.
I stare out the window because there’s nothing else I’d rather lay my eyes on in this bus full of American cliché’. We come to a stop and I see clothes lying on the bench. It’s usually a sign that a homeless person was sitting in that very seat, with all of their worldly belongings beside them when they were stolen from the stop by law enforcement under the charges of loitering/drunk in public/ disturbance of peace/ etc., but I can’t help but think perhaps his clothes are left from the rapture, and me and this bus load of gluttonous sinners have been left behind to burn in the fires that plague southern California and soon the rest of this world.
The bus approaches my stop so I pull the cord to get off and shuffle along with the rest of the herd onto the sidewalk and all I can think about is how I need to take out a loan for 500 grand and blow it all on strippers/tequila/a Rolls/ and the entire top floor of the Beverly Hilton. We’re all doomed anyways right?
I walk to the bus stop, counting the change in my pocket- I don’t have 75 cents, I’ll have to pay a full dollar.
I usually dread taking the bus home. The time I spend walking to the stop I daydream about buying my next car- maybe a Jeep Grand Cherokee, or maybe a steal on a ’73 dodge charger I saw last night on craigslist: $3,500 and it “runs and drives.” Today though I wasn’t thinking about those because the atmosphere is distracting- the sunlight isn’t right. Fires roaring up in thirteen places now, all surrounding LA and the smoke has cast a haze over the sun making 5:00 in the evening look like an early dawn where everything has an orange-yellowish tint. The sun itself looks a blood red and evokes a hellish feeling when coupled with the 95 degree weather and unbearable humidity - the apocalypse must be upon us.
As I board the bus I’m pleasantly surprised to find that the dollar bill machine is broken and I score a free ride; I shouldn’t complain, however after only two months riding the metro you easily find flaws in public transportation. Mainly it’s the people. I sit down at a window seat thinking there’s no way the bus will fill up enough for someone to sit next to me, but I’m proven wrong at the next stop. Twenty or so people, all of them overweight, board the bus- someone sat next to me. Now I’m never one to judge another but America needs to get it’s shit together with the “obesity epidemic.” Scratch that, bullshit it’s an epidemic, take care of yourself damnit. You can’t catch fat like you can a cold. I only use such strong words because I am now pressed uncomfortably next to a window because the lady next to me won’t fit into one seat. I want to turn to her and tell her a story of my everyday morning:
I skate several blocks from one bus stop to catch another and usually wind up waiting for ten or fifteen minutes. In that time I see the number three stop across the street going the opposite direction. A majority of the people exiting the bus are college students as SMC is several blocks from this corner. Now every morning I make the same observation, and before anyone has even plotted a clear course after stepping off the bus I already know who will go where. There are only two main groups- one group crosses the road towards me and makes a right to walk to the next bus that takes them directly to SMC, the others make a left and walk the six or so blocks to the same location. The reason I know who is going where is not simply a question of physique. As you would expect of course the ones who choose to walk are generally thinner and more attractive people, but what I recently have noticed is that that isn’t the main giveaway: the expressions on their face. Those who make that left and choose to take the extra time and walk never fail to be the only ones with smiles on their faces at seven in the morning getting off a crowded bus.
I admire that and I want desperately to tell this lady next to me on this bus that her life would be better if she took the stairs every once in a while- but I digress: I need not worry about her happiness as the apocalypse is at hand.
I stare out the window because there’s nothing else I’d rather lay my eyes on in this bus full of American cliché’. We come to a stop and I see clothes lying on the bench. It’s usually a sign that a homeless person was sitting in that very seat, with all of their worldly belongings beside them when they were stolen from the stop by law enforcement under the charges of loitering/drunk in public/ disturbance of peace/ etc., but I can’t help but think perhaps his clothes are left from the rapture, and me and this bus load of gluttonous sinners have been left behind to burn in the fires that plague southern California and soon the rest of this world.
The bus approaches my stop so I pull the cord to get off and shuffle along with the rest of the herd onto the sidewalk and all I can think about is how I need to take out a loan for 500 grand and blow it all on strippers/tequila/a Rolls/ and the entire top floor of the Beverly Hilton. We’re all doomed anyways right?