BUS STORY # 392 (Shorts 34)

Run don't take the Bus!!, a photo by busboy4 on Flickr.

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I board a full bus and head for the rear. When I pass by the bench seat facing the rear door, all I see is a dress shirt hanging from an overhead strap. It looks like a curtain. Underneath the shirt I can see a pair of black pants hanging, and there’s a striped tie wound around the top of the hanger. It’s impossible to see behind the curtain until I get up on the rear platform. Then I look down on a guy in sweats holding the shirt straight with both hands so it doesn’t get wrinkled.

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Three of us wait for a woman to exit the front door before we board the Rapid. Once she’s off, the first guy boards and approaches the fare box with his pass. The driver says, “Two exit doors, and she’s gotta walk all the way to the front door to get off the bus.”

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Seen on a nine-year-old-sized girl boarding the bus with her mother:

Downloaded from skreened.

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Heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend... ABQ RIDE is gonna be replacing the 300s with new buses. They are supposed to be New Flyers like those in the current fleet, but powered by compressed natural gas rather than the diesel-electric hybrids. Late spring.

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There’s a bicyclist in the outside lane. The traffic is light, and the bus pulls around him. I’m surprised when the driver honks as he passes. He pulls the bus over at the next stop, pops the doors, and waits. “He’s probably gonna want to ride,” he explains to the rider across the aisle by the door. Now I understand the honk. Sure enough, the cyclist pulls around in front of the bus, loads his bike on the rack, then boards. The driver tells him he’d just as soon pick him up as run him down. The bike rider grins, swipes his pass, and heads for the back.