Get a F**king car!

As you all know, the public transit is my main method of transportation.

Mostly by choice, I buy my bus card and go by a pre-determined schedule that I have no say in to get me from point A to point B and back again. I'm saving money, my carbon foot print is damn near non-existant, and it gives me reading/napping time in between destinations.

I have my rants about the bus.
They all carry over from when I rode the buses in Bellingham. Over-crowded, stinky, shakey, and rude people...and the schedule...no matter how convenient it is, you still have to wait and pre-plan. And now I'm living ina "city". Everett was apparently put together by Mr Rockefeller and some upper-crust east coast folk to create the West Coast New York about 100 years ago. Too bad Seattle took that honor and ran with it. Everett is more of a swanky, artisitc, and filthier Bremerton. A navy town with farming imigrants, bars, bowling, car dealerships, and eaasy access to I-5 so you can be anywhere but Everett. Sorry...back to bus rants.

The smell is always something to behold.

I've been to Hempfest, Bumbershoot, OzzFest, anime and comic conventions, raves, dances, drum circles, and rallies...to add that working at a warehouse and changing diapers at childhood development centers...I've smelled it all. Imagine my suprise when I rode the bus for the first time and was hit with a toxic cloud of human stink. Perfume, sweat, body odor, dirty laundry, food, bad breath, lingering of whatever smoke, and bus exhaust...put all of that together, close the windows, and crank the heater...that horrid stink is now baked into your clothes for months. No matter how wonderfully clean you keep yourself, you will walk off that bus smelling like you just shit your pants.

Think of an Anime convention. You know...that corn chip, onion dip, regurgitated garlic smell. Now add in the acidic aroma that conjures memeories of the last time you had food poisoning...are you gasping for air at just the description? Good. Now times that by 5 and you have BUS STINK.

There is always the over-hearing conversations that you really don't want be a witness to. Whether they are conversations between other bus riders or by annoyingly loud cell phones, I overhear a lot of strange things on the bus.
Some of my favorites are
"My parole officer is such an asshole! He want's me to get a fuckin' job! I mean, what the fuck, man!"
"I think tonight I'll either have sex with him, or leave. It all depends on how good the dinner is." "Wassup niggar!" <----------usually said by fat white chicks on a cell phone. Yay tact!
"I call her bitch because she likes it."
"Does anyone know where I can get a hooker or some pot around here?" <----a man once yelled form the back of the bus and then asked the driver the very same question at his stop.

Here is one I heard today on the way home from the library: "I hate this bus. I swear to God it stops at every bus stop. I've got shit to do people!"

Right away, my response to this statement screamed in my mind..."Get a fucking car then!"

When I start to complain about riding the bus, I say this to myself. If I don't like the smell or the people or the travel time...I should get off my ass and get my driver's license. But then I remind myself why I choose the bus and get over my ranting quickly...or I rant about here in Livejournal/Myspace land.