Metro Journal: May 21 What Brown Can Do For You

A woman is handing out Yet Another Religious Tract at the corner of Hollywood and Western. Fortunately she's talking to someone else and can't multi-convert, so I am safe. I see that someone has abandoned their copy on the 207. The booklet cover reads, "What does God expect of you?"

As we're waiting at a red light, I see a rather elderly-looking lady seriously hustle down the block to get to the stop. She makes it, of course, but especially since she wasn't out of breath or anything when she sat down, it was rather impressive.

When I get to Hollywood and Melrose, there are enough people waiting for the westbound 10 that I decide to wait for it. A woman at the stop keeps looking at me and smiling. I smile back, but I'm starting to get creeped out. She comes up to me and she says it looks like my hair is very fine, and that I could thicken it by using natural henna. I should put a raw egg in there to keep it from drying out my hair, though.


Regular bus riders quickly pick of the skill of identifying buses on the horizon. While you can't always know if it's your bus, particularly if a lot of lines stop in the same place, you can at least have hope. While all the Metro buses are about the same height and width, there are so many models of varying age that some are easier to mistake for trucks and so forth than others. The Rapids are mostly newer, and there are some particularly new ones which have nice, bright headsigns. I have mentioned before, though, that while Rapids are supposed to be red and the Locals are supposed to be orange, sometimes they get swapped.

What really annoy me are the UPS trucks. (Unless it's one parked outside my home and delivering a package for me.) They are about the same height and width from the front as a bus, and the orange running lights on the top are the same orange color. When the light outside is failing, it can be especially easy to think it's a bus. Then you realize it's brown and your hopes are dashed. That's what Brown can do.