Oh Hey, That’s my Bus
Whenever a group of people gather at a third-party location folks will inevitably mention either of the following:
1) the weather,
2) how it was getting there,
3) if they drove, where they parked,
4) a pod-cast or something and,
5) when they’ll need to probably start to head back.
When all heads turn towards me, I find a bit of personal joy in saying with a genuine grin:
“I take the bus.”
From this simple declarative sentence folks will develop seemingly endless conclusions. The most frequent I hear is they assume I don’t have a car. People will also assume I’m late to everything. It gives me a great excuse to leave the party early (and a chance to cross-off topic number five).
To me, riding the bus is extremely personal. It’s my way of feeling the MOST connected to my chosen home, currently Richmond, VA. As someone who has A LOT of social anxiety I tend to withdraw, which limits any communal feelings and in turn makes my anxiety even worse; and then the cycle continues. Finding ways to BREAK this cycle and feel a connection to those around me is important.
The bus I ride everyday for my commute feels like a friend. It’s part of my everyday and therefore I’ve bonded with it out of familiarity. The entire GRTC feels like a sports team I’m a fan of. The sort of fan who would use “we” when talking about their team. When my bus arrives on time I feel like we’ve won a match. When it’s super late and leaves me out in the cold, I’m literally walking alone to the shame of football fans in England.
One day I saw my regular bus drive by on a day I wasn’t using it. I was crossing the street, coming home from an errand achieved on foot, and then “SQUEAK” “SWOOBSH” “HRRRRMMMUAH” there it went.
“That’s my bus,” I thought, feeling a tinge of irony to be thinking that and not needing to hurry and catch it. It felt like seeing a co-worker on a Sunday or a friend of yours that you only have ever partied with doing their job.
My favorite greeting card, from this collection, is the Grocery Store. The mental image I have of a bus roaming up and down the aisles like a person was funny to me. And that the only person reacting is not amazed that a BUS is shopping but that they KNOW this particular bus made me burst out laughing. However, when I showed this image to my partner and friends, people did not laugh as hard as I did (or really at all). I’m still proud of it, just like I’m proud of my bus and the GRTC. It might not be perfect but I stand by it.
My hope is that when you send it you too are able to celebrate your own personal community connections.
I also want to state that we as a society should be funding our mass transit systems. If anyone–like myself–is someone who has chosen to ride the bus; that is to say if you have access to other means of reliable transportation, and yet still opt to ride mass transit (especially when it comes to US cities and those in particular parts of the US) you and I are exercising a form of privilege.
Many people do not have access to personal vehicles or back up means of transportation and thus are more reliant on mass transit to commute and live their lives. Imagine having to get everywhere with a car that say 60% of the time you drove it it goes 5–30 minutes slower than it should. It will become noticeable how much time you begin to allot to traveling and in a culture where personal time seems to dwindle rapidly. Get off work late… then have your bus run 30+ minutes late… you’ve likely just lost an hour of personal time… before having to get to bed… so as to wake up and… catch the morning bus to repeat your day. Not to mention still needing time to attend to personal matters like cooking and cleaning. Having to rely on a shaky system wears on a person and thus engaging in that system as a luxury is a privilege.
Be a good person, repay the favor and recognize the human factor.
To ride the bus is to actively engage in the social contract we’re all a part of, especially living in a city.
We should all strive to make public transit better from the base layer up so everyone can enjoy it.