Metro Journal: July 10 Bad Jujubes Coming Your Way

I was more or less on schedule this morning when the 780 stopped at Brand and Broadway and a man in a motorized wheelchair had to get on. I'd seen him ride before, and he always sits on the right-hand side as you face the front. He seems to have a little difficulty speaking loudly, so I assume he wants to be in eyesight of the driver.

The bus was fairly crowded, but everyone in the seats that get put up to make room for wheelchairs got out of the way. Except for one man. He had a long white beard and kept sitting. The ramp on these buses makes a really loud beeping noise, and since he was, well, near the front, unless he was deaf he should be able to hear. The bus driver started saying, "Excuse me, sir, you need to move" several times. Finally someone tapped the man on the shoulder. He was apparently not deaf, because he asked why the man in the wheelchair couldn't sit on the other side, behind the bus driver, where the seats had been vacated by people who weren't self-absorbed jerks. The driver told Mr Proof-That-Common-Courtesy-Isn't-Very-Common that the man in the wheelchair wanted to sit on the other side, where he was sitting.

You realize, of course, that all this time we were not moving. There was a line of people waiting for the wheelchair to get settled so the driver could put up the ramp and they could get on.

Finally, Mr Just-Because-You-Lived-Long-Enough-To-Join-AARP-Doesn't-Mean-You're-Allowed-To-Act-Like-A-3-Year-Old made this big production of getting up. And then he made an even bigger production of picking up all the stuff he had brought on. At least 2 or 3 minutes had past by this point. In bus-minutes that's like 3 hours.

So, Mr Just-Deal-With-It sits down on the other side, making a big production (I realize we were on Broadway, but it wasn't that Broadway) about banging down the seat someone had been polite enough to put up on the other side. Except the motorized wheelchair was pretty large and I guess it had a big turn radius, so the man in it, who had been unfailingly polite and patient, politely and patiently asked Mr Makes-Karen-Wish-She-Had-A-Voodoo-Doll if he could stand up for a moment because he needed room to turn the chair around. So, Mr Where-Is-Instant-Karma-When-We-Need-It makes this big, slow production of getting up, slamming up the seat, and waiting for the man to turn his wheelchair around.

You know, if the most inconvenient thing that I had to do in a given day was move to a seat across the aisle of the bus, I would count myself damned lucky.

I don't know what he thought he was going to get by spiting every single person on that bus and waiting to get on, but what he did get were my ocular inviso-daggers boring into the back of his head. I'm sure he noticed.

Ok, I need Pandora to give me lessons.



Anyway, at the next stop, there was another man in a wheelchair waiting. The driver asked where he was going, then asked if he could take the Local which was right behind us. She said there was a man upfront "having a difficult time." I think what she meant to say was, "being a difficult ass," but she apparently had more patience for that crap than I do. Well, and I can't really get fired for chewing out someone on the bus. Unless my boss happens to be on the bus.

Anyway, the whole damned thing threw off all my connections. I got off at Western and waited what seemed like longer than normal for a bus. Meanwhile, someone was trying to sell pepper spray. Too late.