It’s apparently “long form” week here at Roadguy: A correspondent we’ll call Busboy offers us the following 1,300 words about his recent switch to the bus. Check it out, and share your thoughts below.

ALONG FOR THE RIDE

I am 8:49 a.m. attractive: Guys with white t-shirts tucked into khakis.

The earlier you ride the city bus, the more attractive the passengers. I make the cut close to 9 a.m., when I should already be sitting at my desk slouching towards spinal deformity, pecking at my keyboard and menacing sources over the phone. This is one of the many startling lessons I’m learning as a newly christened bus rider. I didn’t particularly like this lesson in vanity, but I certainly couldn’t ignore it either.

I became a bus rider on Friday the 13th when a commercial-size van drove full-speed into the rear end of my 2000 silver Honda Civic about 11 a.m., crushing the trunk flush with the backseat. I knew deep in my heart that the $10,725 car I paid off last October was headed to the big parking lot in the sky, but I dutifully plucked a banana from the shards of glass and strewn miscellany and threw it into a nearby trash can. I didn’t want it smelling like rotten fruit. That’s how much I loved my car. Goodbye, dear friend.

That first Monday post-crash I enthusiastically prepared for my life as a mass-transit taker. I awoke at 7:30 a.m. and was aboard the Number 6 bus by 8:25 a.m., just about the time I usually dragged my carcass out of bed for the breezy 8-minute drive to work. I figured that 35 minutes was plenty of time to get downtown and walk six blocks to the office.

I was starting a new life. I was going to up the ante on my eco-friendliness. I plunked eight quarters into the farebox as savvier riders swiped magical cards past a magical device. Note to self: Get a card and save yourself the manic search for change every morning and the unsightly bulge in your pocket. I took the transfer ticket, knowing full well I wouldn’t use it. A memento by which to remember the dawn of my new life, I thought as I slipped it into my back pocket.

Single, bored and male I instantly noted the attractive crowd, ear buds planted deep into ear canals, nose sandwiched in a book, newspaper strategically held aloft to minimize eye contact with others. Ties and shirts; a suit or two; flattering dresses; and nary a wrinkle.
I’m not proud of myself for noticing these things, and I don’t pretend to be a good person. I don’t even think shirts and suits are all that great. But I saw and I took note, and I would never be the same again.

Come Tuesday morning my new life had already begun its downward spiral. I woke up late and walked a block to the bus stop in mall-walker mode, arms swinging like pendulums and legs scissoring like blades. I was not going to risk my reputation with the 8:33 a.m. crowd. Alas, that’s where I ended up. Not too shabby, I thought as I boarded.

Wednesday came and then Thursday. In less than a week I had dropped four buses to the 8:49 a.m. tier. This is where hitting the snooze button four times gets you: five rows behind a guy clad in a white t-shirt tucked into straw-colored khakis. I stared blankly out the window at the passing scenery. Oh look, I thought, SuperAmerica looks so festive dressed in red, white and blue. I never knew.

I deserve this, I said to myself. If I can’t get myself to work on time, I don’t deserve to sit near Mr. Tight Corduroys or Young Man in Gray Suit. I had tried to get to bed earlier to no avail. I had set my alarm earlier. Futile. I could not exorcise the demons of my car-dependent ways. I would find happiness with the 8:49 a.m. crowd. Hello, dear friends.

A week and a half later I was stomping towards the bus stop on Hennepin Avenue when the mechanical brontosaurus lumbered past. (I refuse the indignity of running after buses.) I hurried across the street. Perhaps it was the Number 17, I assured myself. But the minutes ticked away. No bus. I found myself face-to-face with the 8:57 a.m., pocket heavy with unsightly change, my soul heavy with shame.

The world was so much safer in the sanctuary of my car, where a carousel of indie rockers serenaded me and trail mix was a glove compartment away. Bottled water rolled about the floor. Cell phone chargers, a toothbrush and a first-aid kit were stashed nearby. Maps abounded. A kite was always in the trunk. I could’ve raise a small family in that car. But the bus, it forces you to tote an umbrella two-thirds your height on beautiful days just because some suit with hair on TV says it might rain. It means you clutch an embarrassment of a lunch in a lumpy, plastic Target bag that looks like a bundle of beloved refuse.

It asks so many questions of you: Are you going to tell the college-age kid standing in front of you that his backpack is open even though giant clamshell headphones clamp over his ears? Are you going to stop a bus you don’t need for someone half a block away running full tilt, arms flailing? Are you going to sit next to her? Or him? Why? Are you going to get off here with everybody else, or are you going to make me lurch every block and disembark one stop over?

All my Honda ever asked was: What will it be today, sir? Rock-and-roll, or NPR? Now my moral compass is questioned daily, and I’m ashamed to report that it simply spins in a vicious circle, like a hurricane promising only to break your prettiest and dearest belongings.

My car got such great mileage that I hardly blinked at today’s gas prices. It only failed after I had abused it, like the time I drove over a snowy curb and dislocated the muffler. It came with 20,000 miles when I bought it after graduating from college in 2003. Three days later it carried me from Iowa to New York City (and eventually, back) without so much as a cough.

It was my first car, and unlike my parents’ geriatric Chevy Cavalier and Nissan I occasionally drove in high school, I never had to pull to the side of the road to prop the hood open because smoke was billowing from the engine. (The Nissan would actually catch fire one day.)

That fateful Friday morning I had stopped on 4th St. at 17th Av. SE. in preparation for a right turn when I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw an angry, steely grill staring back. Suddenly, my car imploded, both airbags blooming frighteningly fast from their hideaways in a terrible, rubbery stench. The back windshield rained down on me like razor-sharp hail. The picture of my 5-year-old niece wedged onto the dash fell into my lap. My right calf throbbed, apparently severely bruised. Even that yellow banana survived the trauma seemingly blacker and browner.

I wanted to believe I couldn’t live without a car, but as I limped from the University of Minnesota campus to downtown and, eventually, home that Friday, the city grew smaller and life without my car, more limitless. Today marks two weeks since the accident. Ten days of bus ridership that have strangely made me more aware and appreciative of people, the city and the closeness of distance.

I’ve given up trying to work my way back to the 8:25 a.m. crowd. Who am I kidding? I, too lazy to iron and thus, wearing the same shirt twice in one week, am just an 8:49 a.m. kind of guy. The 8:57 a.m. won’t be happening again, though. I swear it.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 6:05 am and is filed under Main, Scenes and stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.