6
months ago, if you would of asked me what I thought about city transportation,
I would of given some bitchy response that would have been perceived as it
being beneath me in almost a mean girl sounding undertone. I would of said something along the lines of, “Why do I
need to take the bus when I have a car?”
I even remember in my mid 20s getting in to a heated argument with a guy
I was dating because he didn’t have a car and lived his life by a bus schedule,
and at the time, I never really understood his point of view.
When I
obtained a job that landed me working right in the heart of downtown I was
faced with the ultimate decision as to how badly I wanted the Pittsburgh
Parking Authority to fuck me without at least offering to take me to dinner
first. I was torn between the choice of
a purchasing a parking pass for an over-priced, over-crowded downtown garage
that the parking spaces are not “one size fits all” and are full of Lexus and Audi
driving pricks that feel they have a special sense of entitlement to park like
a degenerate assholes and take up 2 spaces to “protect their investment,” or go
completely out of my element and choose public mass transportation. So I decided to choose the latter.
When
you are newbie to mass transit, the first step is to try to figure out your
route. This is quite a painful process especially
when you have no clue what the hell you are doing, and the cities transit website
is confusing as hell. Trying to figure
out the damn bus schedule for the city of Pittsburgh is about as difficult as
trying to describe color to a blind man.
I even recruited Chuck’s help to try to help me crack the elusive bus
code, and after a solid hour pow-wow that involved yelling, screaming, thoughts
of sending a nasty email to the port authority, we figured out the best
schedule that I could take.
I
remember my first bus ride was like the first day of Kinder garden. I was overwhelmed with emotion. What if the bus doesn't come? What if I don’t get off at the right
stop? What if no one pulls the
cord? Will it still stop anyways? I was on the verge of a panic attack during my first ride. I knew
nothing of any rules, proper etiquette, or even carry on rules. Was this similar to an airplane where I can
only have 1 bag per person? Will I get
yelled at for having a lunch bag and purse?
After
getting comfortable and observing my surroundings, I slowly began to blend in
like a chameleon. I discovered the hard
way in the first month that you don’t talk to people nor make eye contact with anyone
before 7:30am because everyone on the bus would much rather wear ear buds and
facebook stalk than have a conversation with you. I also learned that if your ear buds are up
too loud, people will ask you to turn your “sinner” music down. I also learned that apparently if the person
sitting next to you does not like the scent of your body spray, they will in fact
move to a different seat, stare at you and talk about you to the new person
sitting next to them.
By the time spring came, I felt
that considering I had been riding the same bus and started seeing some of the
same faces during my commute that I had been grandfathered in to the
route. When I started to see the same
people every morning, I began to make up nick names for them in my head, and
when I would have a bad morning, I would feel a sense of belonging knowing that
the likes of “Narcoleptic Ned” , “Jerry
O’Connell Look-a-like and “Skinny Asian girl who’s body I want to swap” were
all my bus peeps, even if they didn't know my name, we were a family.
Aside from my imaginary bus family,
it is also a 25 min chance for me to gather my thoughts, get my mind awake and
when that happens, I tend to get the most random thoughts and ideas. Some
days, when I am feeling confident that I am looking like a hot business women,
I will stand up in the middle of the isle 1 stop prior to where I get off and
visualize myself as if I am a hot pirate (Kinda like Penelope Cruz in the last
Pirates of the Caribbean movie) and I have just commandeered this bus and I am
demanding the driver to drop me off at my final destination so that I can go downtown
to pillage. Another time I had a random
thought when I noticed there were 7 men standing in a row in the isle way. All I kept thinking is how if the bus came to
a sudden stop, it would go from “Typical Monday Morning Bus ride” to an
Accidental Male orgy on wheels. Then I
had the pleasure to witness what may have made Guinness Book for “Longest
attempt to take a selfie and still fail”
Timed at 27 Minutes. 10 attempts to which each picture looked exactly the same
as the one before, 1 facebook post only to be removed to make 5 more attempts
and re-post on Facebook.
There
are also some life lessons that cannot be observed, they have to be lived
through….
Lesson #1: The Bus
Stops for No One
Upon
the beginning of spring, with the help of my steady income and personal stylist
(Pintrest) I decided that at 31, I was going to start to be more
fashionable. With that in mind, I went
on a $800 shopping spree to bulk up my closet with pretty much a diverse selection
of Wedges, Blazers and colorful shirts.
I set a goal to obtain every
color of the rainbow in wedges, and managed to succeed with the likes of the
internet and Ebay. I have never been a stiletto
girl ever. I own 1 pair of heels that I
would get made fun of for repeatedly because they were by far the most comfy
but ugliest pair of heels on the planet, so I basically had to reteach myself
how to walk in Wedges. After about a
week of twisting my ankle and blisters galore, I finally mastered the art like
a champ and no longer looked like a baby giraffe trying to take its first
steps. I was feeling good, confident and was on a total power trip, and would
determine that If I could make the 1 block walk to the bus stop without
twisting my ankle, it was going to be a good day.
The bus
was late as usual and it had begun to rain so I literally hurried on to the bus
hoping that I didn't look like a drown rat with great looking wedges. I placed my card on the unit that registered fares and noticed
that there were no seats available up front, so instantly I heard Outkast's song
playing in my ever running mind instructed me to, “Ah HA hush that fuss, Shelby
you need to move to the back of the bus”
so I did. As I
was heading towards the back I always try to get the seats that are at the very
back at the bus, because they vibrate.
Yeah I said it…and now I will probably never get that seat again. Those seats were taken by other like-minded
women that day, and there was one seat available in the middle of a 3 seat
configuration that had a pole attached to it.
There was a guy to the left who resembled
a young Abraham Lincoln. He had a long
beard that had a hint of red and brown in it and was wearing a business
suit. If he had a Mr. Peanut hat, he would
have been fully ready for a civil war re-enactment outing. To the right was a mid 20’s casual dressed
girl that was nose deep in her phone and ear deep in her headphones. During this entire time, an elderly lady had
gotten on behind me so the bus was at a compete stop and I had no problems
getting to the back of the bus. As I
reached the top step of the back of the bus that lead to this 3 seat
configuration, the bus jerked forward.
It was as if the bus driver had hit a hidden NOS switch and we were
about to go head to head over a set of train tracks against Vin Diesel. When the bus jerked forward, I lost my
balance and headed straight for honest Abe.
When you are in a life and death situation such as this, it is human
nature to instinctively put your hands out in order to prevent any direct
confrontation ,however the only thing stopping me from supermanning this poor
dude was the pole. And that’s when it happened. Both of my hands grabbed the pole and
channeling my inner stripper, the momentum from the jerk of the bus caused me
to spin around and I ended up reverse cowgirl in this poor guys lap. As I looked down and saw his wedding ring, I
felt even worse knowing that I accidentally had just given a married man a
partial unintentional lap dance. Face red
as all hell, and the entire bus laughing hysterically at what had just
happened, I kept apologizing and sat in my intended seat. Not helping was realizing that my ear buds
were up exceptionally loud and I was literally yelling my apology to this man,
drawing attention to myself from now both the front and back of the bus. I sat in silence for the next 25 minutes and
literally ran off the bus as quick as I could.
I purposely took the earlier bus for a week to avoid seeing his
guy. Then exactly one week to the day
in the same seat was honest Abe. I had been lucky enough to get the back seat,
so I put my sunglasses on, ear buds in and let the bus ride me to work, only to
open up my eyes, and see Abe staring at me with a shit eating grin on his face…
Lesson #2. Don’t Fall In Love with Strangers
Every
Friday is casual day, so therefore we can dress down. Lately dressing down for me consisted of a consultation
from Pintrest on what to wear with “Dark Jeans” and just do nothing with my
hair. I figure its Friday, I want to
under achieve and it’s a short work day, so no need to go all out, so I took
advantage of the opportunity to sleep in an extra 10 min and have a wild child
hair day.
The
ride started out as normal as it does. A
few familiar faces getting on at the same stops, so naturally I would wish them
a good morning in my head. I have a few
ballerinas that live in my neighborhood so I am always excited to see them get
on the bus and visualize the all girly idea of what it would be like to be a
ballerina, and there is always one particular stop that like 4 of them get on
at. As we pulled up to the stop, I had
noticed the girls, but a newbie in
scrubs, which made total sense because it was near a hospital, but even
as the bus approached and prior to it stopped I got a glips of him from afar
and I was stunned. He was by far the
most gorgeous man I had ever seen, no joke.
He had dark hair and pericing blue eyes, that were even brighter conserving
hew as wearing baby blue scribs. I have
only been hot and bothered 2 times in my life by a man. The first was a gorgeous bartender that I met
while traveling in NYC, and now this guy.
He got on the bus and sat 4 rows ahead of me, so all I could see was the
back of his head. Even the back of his
head was beautiful. And for the next 25
min I began to visualize our future together. He adored me, as I did him. He always put me first and swept me off of my
feet. He was fair and mature and was
never greedy. The way he proposed was
right out of a movie. Our wedding day was on a nice fall day. The weather was not too hot and not to cold,
it was a perfect day. My girls were
wearing red, and my dress had matching swavarski crystals to match the 5 carat
ring that he put on my finger. It was a
parade of beautiful people, and we were surrounded by friends and family in an intimate
ceremony in the rose garden. Then I
dreamt of our children and what they would look like. They would have his eyes, my nose and they
would be exceptionally gifted in sports and academics. Ariel (our daughter) and our son (JR) were
raised in home full of love and nurturing.
Then I fast forwarded to our Notebook ending where we were just so much
in love that we died in each other’s arms at the ripe old age of 90.
So
finally after I pulled my head out of my ass and realized that my stop was coming
up soon, I wanted to position myself in front of him so that I could get a
better look at Mr. McDreamy’s face. So I
got up and I stood at the front of the bus, appearing as If I was getting off
at the next stop. I don’t know what came
over me, considering it was 7:30 am and I had no Vodka in me, but I decided to
tell him how gorgeous he was...which ended up being an awkward disaster. He must had been working the night shift
because he had his head down as if he was trying to sleep. I started to wave at him to get his attention
and tried to do it discreetly because I didn't want the entire bus to watch me
profess my love to a total stranger, but he wasn't looking at me. So I had to get closer to this beautiful creature,
and it was similar to approaching a rouge tiger in the wild, you don’t know if
it’s going to lick you or maul you. So I
finally get him to look up and holy mother of god his eyes, are a blue as the
sea and they pierce right though me and it happen…I start to get awkward and can’t
talk. I say, “You are gorgeous” and he
smiled, which his smile was perfect, literally perfect teeth, and he says, “I
think you may need to get your eyes checked because I’m really not.” I replied, “Hey normally I get tongue tied
and I can’t talk to such gorgeous men and then things start coming out of my
mouth I can’t control…” and I kept going…total
diarrhea spewing out of my mouth…I blacked out at the embarrassment of my
inability to be able to talk to him like a normal human being but remember
picking back up at, “So thank you for making my morning brighter.” I should of ended all of it with Giggity
because that’s how I felt. In my black out I hadn't realized that there
were 4 people observing this horrible attempt to talk to an attractive guy, and
a woman who witnessed the whole thing said to him, “Awe that was cute.” I didn't stick around, I literally ran off
the bus as fast as I possibly could and didn't turn back. I haven’t seen him since. Chances are I probably scared him off of
riding that bus, so I had to change my notebook ending to divorcing him in my
mind. It was very painful, and something
I struggled with getting over. We had to
share custody of Ariel and Jr and all of the assets got split in half. It was a very amicable divorce, and we remained
civil towards each other for the kids sake.
Lesson #3. Don’t Drink
and Ride the Bus
It was
3:30 in the afternoon and I was on my way home after getting out of work
early. It was a beautiful sunny day, and
I was lucky enough to grab the bus as I was getting to the stop so I didn't
even have to wait. It was like the Cosmo’s
were saying, “Shelby we are going to get you home super early today.” The
bus was actually very low as far as occupancy went, maybe 20 people if that
were on this bus, it was nice because I had pretty much the choice of any seat
that I wanted, so I chose to sit about 4 rows from the front door and 1 row
from the mid door considering the very back vibrating seats were fucking taken. With my earbuds on, I drifted away in to the
sounds of my Ipod, as I always do and un winded organizing my thoughts and
running through my list of things I needed to do when I got home. I
remember my mom telling me she didn't think I was a good idea to wear my head phones because
I always need to be “aware of my surroundings” and I did what any daughter
would do, laugh at her and ignore her warning.
We were
mid route when I noticed the people in front of me looking behind me in
disbelief as if something was going on. Trying
to process what exactly was happening, I turned around to see a drunk man
punching the shit out of another man sitting next to him. Guy “A” was literally beating the shit out
of Guy “B”, and “B” was so drunk that he wasn't even fighting back. They had been sitting together the whole
time, and were even talking to one another when I first got on the bus, when I
started to remember, and now “A” is taking his elbow to “B”s head. I was close enough to all of this that if I
would o f had a cardboard sign I could have been a ring girl. As “A”
is elbowing “B” in the head, he slurs, “I told him not to fuck with me” to
which an off duty security guard steps in to observe what is taking place. “B” is now out cold, slouched down in the
seat, unconscious. Sheer panic sets in and my adrenaline starts
pumping. I’m literally dumfounded and
really hoping that this is a new version of an Impractical Jokers spin off,
because this fight literally was contained in the seats they were sitting
in. There was no craziness across the
bus, or innocent bystanders being pushed.
It happened in a 1ft by 1 ft space.
Just as quickly as the fight started, “A” stops, as if a switch had been
shut off in his brain and he is just standing there looking around at
everyone. I had my sun glasses on, but I
made eye contact with him once and I almost pissed my pants fearing that he was
going to come at me next, and I have never hit anyone in my life, so I was
questioning myself, “Have I really watched enough episodes of Buffy the Vampire
Slayer to be able to apply it to a real world situation?”
Fortunately
and Ironically, the cosmos responded by the busses not running according to
schedule and a bus that goes on my same route was directly behind the bus I was
on, and made the executive decision to get on the second bus. Only 4 of the 20 people got off this
bus. Myself, 2 others got on the second
bus, and the 4th lady said – direct quote, “Screw this I’m walking,
I don’t have time for these drunk n****a’s bullshit”. Myself and the 2 others that got on the
second bus had a pow wow and relived what had just happened, when without any
warning, guy “A” tried to get on the bus that the 3 of us intentionally got on
to get away from him. So now guy “A” has
followed us on to the second bus, and the bus driver is telling a guy that just
beat the shit of out the guy sitting next to him that he can’t get on this
particular bus. I again begin to have
another panic attack and try to rethink that scene from that one Sandra Bullock
Movie where she talks about “T.I.P.S” and
as if a miracle happens, the guy turns around and leaves and begins to walk
away. So me and my 2 new friends begin
to recap what just happnened and try to figure out 1. Why the remaining 15 ppl
chose to stay on the bus while the paramedics were being called. 2. Did guy “A” really just walk away? Considering
I would imagine fighting on a bus is a crime? 3. Are we on a hidden camera show? 4.
That was by far the most isolated fight I have ever seen. 5.
What did “B” say that caused “A” to go bat shit crazy on them. As my
stop approached, and I bid my new friends goodbye, I left them with one last
revelation, It was 3:30 in the afternoon and I had just witnessed my first city
bus drunk fight. They congratulated me,
we high fived each other, I thanked the bus driver for rescuing me and laughed
the entire way home.
Keeping It real
-Shelby
