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Friday, May 12, 2006

This never would’ve happened on the monorail…

Posted by on May 12 at 13:32 PM

I was taking the bus downtown today and at Westlake we got caught in a swarm of jaywalking supersized, badly-dressed people sporting fannypacks. The bus driver, who I will be building a shrine to presently, blurted out: “Goddamn tourists! Go home!” The whole bus laughed.
Also, as he was announcing the prominent points of each stop (e.g. “Madison, Marion, ferry terminal, Federal Building”), he seemed to be at a loss for landmarks at one street: “James Street…Um…James….well…There’s a really good barber shop on James Street…”
Some days the Metro makes it all worthwhile.


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Ha, this reminds of the driver on the 10 who always annonces, "welcome to Broadway, home of all things strange and wonderful."

there is a great barbershop on james. Clean Cut, what up Brother Thomas!

Funny, that. Last night the #11 was, as usual, 15 minutes late at the 4th & Pike stop. Once it finally did show up, everyone piled on, including a couple of nasty old crack-whore-looking bitches. Why bitches, you ask? Well, they refused to pay their fare, instead choosing to argue incoherently with the driver, a futile argument, it turned out, that culminated with one of the afore-mentioned bitches spitting into the driver's face. Apparently this, according to Metro rules and safety guidelines, constitutes a "security situation," which, as I learned last night while simply trying to get home after a long day at work, basically means that the bus immediately gets shut down and the driver gets the rest of the night off. What about the passengers, you ask? Why, they of course get to sit on the bus that is going nowhere (and reeking of human urine, mind you) for another 15 minutes, waiting for a new driver to come and continue the route. Ah Metro, you never cease to entertain! And as for you crack-whore-lookin' bitches, well, I'd say you are gonna get what's coming to you, but clearly, karma caught up with you long ago.

this almost could have happened on the monorail: in Chicago for many years there was a train operator with a great deep Barry White style baritone, and his was the Love Train, as he announced stations and greeted regular riders and gave advice about having a good day and allathat. At every stop, he'd announce what was around there, recommend restaurants or other things to do. At the end of the Line at Howard Street, he'd give a little mini-sermon about focusing on the positive and remembering to take all of your belongings. . .

Then the CTA replaced live conductors with a robot voice making preprogrammed announcements, and we lost one more of the individual personalities who make any city interesting and worth living in.

Good Metro drivers are a treasure. I love me some good public servants/employees...

man, crack whore bitches.

where's the green river killer when you need him most?

...

I KEEED!!

wow sounds fun. too bad you smelled like homeless person urine when you got off the bus and realised you'd just been sitting in a puddle of it.

buses suck. or blow or whatever. they are dumb.

On my Thursday morning commute on the 60, our driver announced that Jane (I don't know her real name), "our favorite bus driver," had just boarded. Jane had driven the 60 at the same time for several years but is currently on a hiatus from driving. The entire bus applauded when she boarded and begged her to come back. When Jane said that she will be back in a few weeks, the woman next to me started to tear up.

I love the spiel of that #10 driver!

Anybody who can make me laugh out-loud, while being packed sardine-style with a bunch of other people on a crowded bus at rush-hour deserves a raise.

Absolutely!

That awesome busdriver had to drive the 42 for a spell a few years back and he is definitely a treasure. It's impossible to stay "busmad" for long when he's driving.

there are some damn great bus drivers in our city. i was on the bus once with the smelliest vagrant in the universe. the bus driver, a middle aged woman with immaculately coiffed hair, stopped the bus, walked over to where he was sitting, and blasted the air with perfume.

she then exclaimed, "kinda now, kinda wow my ass!" and returned to the driver's seat.

the perfume was, of course, charlie by revlon.

this tale demonstrates three things: i have not riden the bus regularly since charlie was fashionable, a good jingle will find its way into all sorts of everyday situations, and there are, indeed, some smelly motherfuckers using metro.

Smelly dirty people find subways, they find trains, and if we had built it, they would've found the monorail. The alternative is to spends hundreds of dollars a month and lose hours and horus of your life each week driving a car and being part of the problem.

Vagrants are a part of the city, so deal with it unless you want to push the city to actually do something for a change about the homeless/wandering mentally ill problem.

Also, it would've been funny to approach James Street and call out The Morrison as a landmark.

we are all so covetous of real public transit in seattle, cause we don't have any, that sometimes we forget how disgusting it actually is.

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