Machines say the funniest things

By Bob

The newer TriMet buses have an automated system that calls out the approaching stops. It's supposed to be helpful, and probably is to newbies, but to most riders it's annoying background noise. But it gave one rider a laugh on an otherwise dull late-night run.

As the No. 12 approached the YMCA on Barbur, the monotone recording of a male voice rang out: "YMCA -- Southwest Hooker Street."

Immediately, a thirtysomething woman chirped to the dozing half-full bus: "Hooker Street! Here? No, way. They should use that on 82nd or Sandy. Now those are hooker streets."

Badda-bing.

Breathe, stupid, breathe!

By Amy

A tweaker guy takes a long, final drag of his cigarette, and is about to climb aboard the crowded No. 6, but then Big Mama Bus Driver stops him.

BIG MAMA: You make sure you blow your smoke out before you step in here.

TWEAKER: What? What do you mean?

BIG MAMA: You know what I mean. Nobody wants to breathe that mess.

COMMENTARY: It's a sad reflection on our country when someone has to be told to leave his smoke outside. It's even sadder when he takes offense and argues with the driver over it. What in his life has brought this man to this point? What would his own mother say? This reminds me of that old Warner Brothers cartoon "Dough Ray Me-ow" in which the cat is so stupid that he forgets to draw breath: The parrot has to slap him and shout "Breathe, stupid, breathe! You forgot to breathe again."

PSA

By Jim

One passenger to another on the late-night No. 12 to King City: "You should stay in school. Look at me. I went to Chico State for two semesters, and then I dropped out. Now I have to grow weed for a living."

Looks like muskrat love

By Jim

The first odd thing I notice as I take a seat up front on the 10:36 p.m. No. 12 is a handtruck holding a cat carrier, with one end cut out of it. The second odd thing is the owner of the handtruck, wearing a battered leather cowboy hat laced with rawhide around the outer edge of the brim. Hatman is holding -- up against his face -- a white rat with an eight-inch-long tail. More than holding. Stroking. Incessantly stroking. And kissing. As in fur to lips.

After a while, he begins to talk to the rat, soft murmurings. If my lip-reading is correct, he's saying "I love you." The stroking and kissing continue from the Portland State University stop to 4900 SW Barbur, where Hatman pulls the get-me-outta-here cord. He stands, opens his leather jacket, places the rat inside on his left shoulder, then closes the jacket. Hatman wheels the handtruck off the bus and is gone.

Maybe the rat is a service animal, though it's difficult to know who is serving whom. Another possibility: the 4900 SW Barbur stop is where a grocery store employee feeds the rats with leftovers from work. Maybe it's a playdate. Or maybe rats are the new cats. Trendy people ride TriMet, too.

Blue notes

By Jeremy

The kids always know what's going down in this magic metropolis, and with school back in session, my commute on the Blue Line MAX is again filled with kids spitting the truth.

For instance, just yesterday, I learned from a pack of three bros standing nearby that:

Devon said you can get headphones at The Dollar Tree, but you totally can't. It's total bullshit.

The Sex Pistols aren't bad; they're just old.

The Beaverton Transit Center is called the BTC. To assert your street cred, you have to say it over and over and over.

Thanks, kids!

Fashion in transit

By Jake

Today was fashion day on my bus.

There was the old guy with heavily tattooed arms, including a monkey wrench on his triceps, who was wearing suspenders made to look like tape measures.

There was the elderly lady, with white hair and glasses, mobility and weight issues, wearing a Megadeth T-shirt.

But my favorite was the large man in grungy laborer clothes. He was sweaty and smelly and dirty and wearing a bright yellow, rolled-up headband that Olivia Newton-John would have been proud of.

Sometimes it seems to me that the people on my bus are a testament to life's consequences for questionable decisions about personal appearance.

The moth

By Bob

The air inside the bus was warm and stifling, even though many of the windows were opened. The No. 12 lumbered along Barbur on its way from downtown on a late summer night. About 20 riders dozed, listened to headphones or texted.

And then it appeared. A moth, brown in color and about the size of a matchbook, fluttered its way from the back of the bus toward the front. The moth darted to the ceiling and then descended, dancing along the tops of the riders' heads. A few people noticed, but most sat unaware, listening to tunes or concentrating on cell screens.

When the moth reached the front of the bus, it turned and made its way back. And upon reaching the rear, it again turned and headed forward. It was doing meandering laps, like a stoned version of Michael Phelps with wings.

A few riders began to pay attention, especially when it would descend to eye level. The moth seemingly would toy with some people, flapping its wings and circling their heads, forcing them to shake it off.

One guy's dodging motions got the best of him and his head struck the head of the young man sitting next to him. "What the ... ," the surprised neighbor blurted out. Then they both laughed, as did several people sitting behind them.

For about five minutes, the wandering moth entertained about a dozen people in the back of the No. 12. The moth continued its laps before an audience that now and then yelled out encouragement and warnings.

"Look out, there," a woman said when the moth closed in on an oblivious rider in the front. "Go, baby, go," said another passenger as the moth picked up speed on its return trip to the rear.

Then, while midway along a lap toward the front of the bus, the moth suddenly darted toward an open window and flew out into the darkness.

And the riders returned to their headphones and cells.

Duel

By Bob

Sometimes the journey home gets more interesting once a rider leaves the bus.

On a hot Friday night, the last No. 12 from downtown was mostly full. A pretty lively crowd of the mostly sober, the less sober and the mostly drunk headed toward the burbs. It was talkative bunch. The booze and the beer and whatever else had put even the headphone-wearers into a gabby mood. Good times.

One rider departed at 53rd Avenue, a desolate stop on Barbur notable only for the strip club there, the Big Bang. After the bus moved on, the traveler crossed Barbur and headed up the hill on 53rd. Walking steadily, he dodged a couple of cars along the sharp curve at Pomona and continued up 53rd toward Capitol, several blocks away. The unlit street is paved here, and at nearly 1 a.m., only a few houses had lights on.

The traveler heard a vehicle coming up behind him, a rarity that time of night on 53rd. He was walking on the left side of the street, and as the SUV passed him, it slowed somewhat, and he could hear voices and music and smell cigarette smoke from the open windows. The SUV proceeded to the intersection with Capitol, crossed under the sole streetlight and continued up 53rd, which at that point turns to gravel.

The traveler was following some distance behind. He saw the SUV's brake lights come on and watched it stop at the next block, Buddington. The traveler's usual route kept him on 53rd until Buddington, where he would take a left, but something about the halted SUV set off inner alarms. So he took a left on Capitol and headed up the hill to 51st, where he would take a right and head toward Coronado.

The stretch of 51st between Capitol and Coronado, several blocks long, is also unpaved and dark -- no streetlights. It was quiet and the traveler could hear the scratchy sound of rocks beneath his feet with every step. He walked in the middle of the narrow road. As he neared the intersection of 51st and Buddington, he looked down the hill to his right, expecting to see the SUV at the bottom, where he had last seen it a few minutes before. But suddenly he was blinded by headlights. The SUV had climbed Buddington, apparently with its lights off, and was almost at the intersection with 51st.

Startled, the traveler increased his pace and moved to the left edge of 51st. The SUV accelerated toward him, spraying gravel as it gained speed. The traveler started to jog and made his way to the nearest lawn as the rocks splattered behind him. He climbed a small incline until he was about six feet into the home's lawn. The SUV kept coming and swerved to avoid a boulder that marked the edge of the property.

The traveler, fully alarmed, started to run toward Coronado and the nearest streetlight. He stayed off the road and ran through the lawns of several houses. The SUV followed, directly to his right. Its spinning tires sprayed gravel toward him. The traveler's heart was pounding and he was almost out of breath. As he sprinted, he looked over at the SUV, whose headlights were bobbing as it bounced over potholes in the rutted road.

The SUV's engine was roaring and the gravel was flying. Then, it abruptly came to a halt. The traveler kept running, cut behind a small fir tree and, staying on the lawns, headed up Coronado. He could hear the SUV's engine being gunned. Glancing behind him, he saw that it was stuck, maybe high-centered on something at the road's edge.

The exhausted traveler slowed to a walk and climbed the hill on Coronado. He still had a long stretch to go on the trip home, but the pursuit had ended. He was looking forward to a beer.

Immunity

By Jim

I am stuck hanging onto a strap in the middle of a conversation at the front of the standing-room-only No. 12. Cells are passed back and forth to show photos; parties are discussed; girlfriends shift liquidly onto and off of laps. The multimedia mash-up goes on for nearly 15 minutes as we roll south through the neon night of Barbur Boulevard.

As we near the Transit Center, the driver turns and says forcefully: "Will the young man in the white sweatshirt please quit using the F-word."

Strangely, I have not heard the F-word, and I am standing right next to the guy, who is sitting to my left. But he doesn't protest; he just slouches in the seat a little more. Apparently the profanity has not registered with me. What is the sound of one F-word clapping if it falls in the forest and nobody's "there" to notice?

Riddle of the roof

By Jim

Waiting for the microwave to char my pitiful leftovers, I stroll to the second-floor window of our company cafeteria and gaze down on the street, hoping to spy that transcendent transit talisman, the Mighty 6. No sighting. But before the dinner dinger goes off, the No. 58 rolls by.

On its roof is an advertisement: "KXL 750 AM -- We're On It."

On the ROOF of the bus! Huh? I wonder how much that advertising costs. I wonder who sees it. I think about a bus on its side in a ditch, with diesel fuel pooling around it, a sparking engine, and flames illuminating that radio station ad, now in the lots-of-eyeballs, Our-Top-Story-Tonight position.

Why would you put an advertisement on top of a bus? I'll be thinking about that on my ride home tonight.

Blessed are the bus drivers

By Amy

 

I was waiting for the bus at night in the South Park Blocks, in the glow of an old-fashioned streetlamp. The earliest traces of autumn rode in on the wind, seeping through my summer clothes and chilling me to the core—the warm, sunny afternoon had tricked me into leaving my sweater at home. Pacing back and forth with my arms crossed, I tried to stay warm.

 

My bus appeared, at least seven minutes late. At least I thought it was my bus, but its sign said CENTER GARAGE instead of the line number and the destination. As it came closer, I recognized the scowling brunette behind the wheel as the usual bus driver at this time on the route.

 

She saw me on the curb, and shook her head no while making a slicing gesture at her neck with her hand, like a mechanic signaling to another to cut the ignition, or a bartender telling a drunk no more, you are cut off. Then she blasted right past me.

 

Now, you have to understand, my previous experiences with this driver have not exactly been pleasant. But they haven't been so unpleasant that I'd go out of my way to report her to TriMet in hopes that she loses her job—it's not that serious. But I do have a few minor complaints.

 

For one, I don't like the way she drives. She brakes too hard and too late, as if red lights were annoying afterthought instead of a crucial means of controlling traffic. If I'm sitting, I brace myself to keep from shattering my kneecaps on the seat ahead, or if I'm standing, I have a death grip on the pole to stay upright.

 

And another thing: either TriMet has assigned her a bus with no shock absorbers, or she manages to roll over every single bump and pothole possible on the road. When I used to work on a Forest Service fire crew, we'd tell our co-workers with this driving habit to pay attention to where they're going and "stop hammering our kidneys."

 

She also annoys the hell out of me by speaking at a volume that only a woman who has mothered at least three children can achieve—the telltale shout used for herding kids. She sounds like Ethel Merman, had the legendary Broadway singer been a drill sergeant. For example:

To a driver who nearly T-boned us: "Can't you see the sign says yield YOU STUPID IDIOT."

To a bicyclist: "I told you FIVE TIMES to turn your bike the other way on the rack. WHY DIDN'T YOU LISTEN TO ME THE FIRST TIME?"

To a hippie girl boarding the bus: "Sweetheart, if you stand back in the darkness like that I CAN'T SEE YOU." (To which the girl replied: "I'm not your sweetheart.")

 

On the other hand, she deserves props for not holding a grudge. One night, after I had rung the bell, she drove past my stop, which I confess is nearly completely hidden by trees. "HEY, THAT'S MY STOP!" I shouted, completely overreacting, but maybe subconsciously mimicking her trademark yell. The following night, although her bus was noisy and crowded with teenagers, she went out of her way to shout "GOOD NIGHT, DEAR," to me as I exited the back door, no trace of sarcasm in her voice at all.

 

On a different night, a homeless man boarded. As he balanced a halfway-smoked, snuffed-out cigarette on his bottom lip, he proceeded to search his pockets one by one for his transfer. He checked his jacket pockets; his shirt pocket; the front, back and leg pockets of his cargo pants, and then he moved on to the half-dozen or so bags he was carrying. The driver set the emergency brake and waited with her arms crossed in back of her head, as though she were sunning herself in Cabo, while he dug through his belongings. I seethed in my seat. Why doesn't she kick him off? This fool is just pretending to have a transfer. He's trying to break her down so he can get a free ride. After no forward motion for five minutes, which in TriMet time is 20 minutes, the man shouted "Aha!" and had held up the tiny slip of paper for her to see.

 

So if she could be so nice to Sir Many Pockets, why did she leave me shivering and alone in the Park Blocks? What a stone-cold bitch.

 

I flipped open my cell phone and called the transit tracker. The mechanized white male voice on the other end told me the next bus would arrive in 26 minutes. I cursed the voice and hung up. During the wait time, I marched down to the Safeway and bought a half-gallon of milk and a six-pack of beer.

 

When I left the store, my bus was just pulling up. I boarded. A burly young man was driving. I told him my regular driver failed to stop for me earlier. "What gives?" I asked.

 

"She had a customer-caused accident," he said. "I'm a fill-in driver."

 

I thought about possible scenarios. After so many near-misses with merging cars, did she finally get in a wreck? Did a fight break out on the bus? Did it involve guns? Did the stress become too much for her and she just up and quit?

 

"You could say she was in a hurry to change her uniform," the driver said.

 

"You mean someone vomited on her?"

 

"Yep," he said. "That's one of the risks you take with this job. Especially tonight, with the holiday weekend just starting. Lots of crazies out there."

 

Vomited on by a stranger. She didn't deserve that. Nobody deserves that. She was just trying to drive a bus, for Chrissakes. Make some money to pay her bills, like everybody else. I tried to imagine how I'd feel if someone on the bus barfed on me, or if someone leaned over my cubicle wall at work and let it fly. 

I felt ashamed that I was so quick to make her the target of my anger. Who really was the impatient person here, the one quick to judge? In my heart of hearts, I knew the answer: I was the true bitch of the bus.

 

P.S. St. Christopher, the patron saint of bus drivers, please keep our TriMet operators safe.