Secrets About Your City Bus That They Won't Tell You. Bumps #3

It's thursday so you know it's time for a bumps post. A bumps post is not a story but general fun information and a chance for me to do more than the same old blog post. I hope you have fun with this weeks, I had a kick doing it.

Oh before I start I wanted to say that the blog is growin like mad and I owe that all to you my good readers, so thank you all for your support. 

Almost all of you have been in a city bus at some time or are familiar with the layout of your average low floor American bus. To the untrained eye this is how you see the bus.

Nothing new here, you have your driver, front door, lower front deck, upper rear deck, priority seating for honored citizens and rear door. You have all seen this bus floor plan a hundred times, if not thousands of times. 

This vision of the low floor bus is not my vision however. You see to a driver there is much more going on. Now for the first time I will divulge to you the secret locations that only bus drivers know. The locations you see every day but never recognize. 

So please put on the special 3D bus driver goggles that I taped under your desk, table and left inside your backpack. You are about to enter the secret world of the bus driver. 

These Goggles will let you see the world as a bus driver see's the world. 

WARNING! 

Once you see the bus as the driver does, you can never go back. Try as you will you can never unsee or unknow what you are about to learn. So if you want to remain untouched, if you want to hide away in your myths that OJ is innocent, that the 9/11 terrorist was a government conspiracy or that somehow Justin Bieber really matters, if you want to keep seeing the city bus as the same old bus then take of the goggles and return to your normal world. 

Ok did we get rid of the weak ones? 

Good, so all of you remaining are ready for this trip? Right?

You are about to learn how deep the rabbit hole goes...

Code Name: "The Stage" 
Location: Over forward Curbside Wheel.

The stage is a flat platform over the forward curbside. It can be used for good, People store groceries there, folded strollers and just about everything else they bring with them that's too large to sit with.  

The stage is the performance venue of a city bus. Watch close when you ride and you will see the same three plays performed  over and over with Shakespearian greatness. They all revolved around a theme, “I can’t find my pass” “I can’t find my money” “I can’t find transfer” all these plays migrate to the stage. Here they perform the dramatic "unload" of all the recipts, previous out of date passes and transfers dropping them all on the stage.

 The stage is ued to maximizes is visibility to fellow riders, who after the performance drags into it’s third act will often come up and pay for the actor to ride. 

Code Name: The Choke

Location: Between the front wheell

People love to stand in the Choke, I call them Chokers, the are the very definition of the “Me first,” “I’m More Important” “It’s all about me” people you try to avoid in your non bus world. 

I can have ten people on the bus, six will be seated and four will be pushing and shoving to stand in the Choke. This slows people boarding and exiting because they have to squeeze past the Chokers, Not to mention that people trying to board always assume that the Chokers are waiting to leave to they pause to wait for them to exit. After much delay I have to wave them in and explain that no one is leaving. 

Oh and don’t you ever ask a Choker to move back and make room because they are just about to get out, somewhere in the next two to fifty stops. 

Code Name: The Creep Seats

Location: First Seats On The Bus

This was and is much worse on high floor busses where the seats come right up behind the driver. Not everyone who sits here is a creep but all creepers sit here so they can stare at the driver and everyone coming on board. 40 empty seats and the creepers will sit right behind you and peek at you or just stare in that Gun’s and Ammo, fully automatic weapon way. 

Code Name: Loud Talker Zone

Location: Front 1/3rd of Lower front floor

WHAT THE HELL! of all the strange things on a bus the loud talker zone is one of the strangest. It’s a scientific fact that louder the talker the closer to the bus driver they will sit. Worse is two loud talkers sitting next to each other, talking loud enough that everyone on the bus can hear them. Do they go to the back of the bus? nope! 

Loud talkers are worse when they are on a cell phone. I always give them the four block rule. After four blocks of sharing I ask them as nice as I can to respect the ride. What I want to do is toss their phones out of the bus. 

My two favorite are a pair of Chinese women who yell in Mandarin dissipate being 18” from one another. after 38 blocks of heavy traffic and nazal non stop talking over one another yelling I want to shout, "住口"

Code Name: The Sleep Seats

Location: Middle Seats On Lower Deck

Now people can fall asleep in any seat on the bus, but after a little recrod keeping in my drivers books I spotted this location from the sleeper data. Maybe sleepy people feel safer here, not alone in the back away from the driver, not up front where they can be seen. Maybe the ride here is better, I can’t say for sure why but keeping track of them over the time I can tell you that most people snooze it out here. 

Code Name: Tough Guy Zone

Location: Next To Rear Doors

Look out Arnold Schwarzenegger! Stand back Quintin Tarantino!

 This area of the bus is where all the tough guys go, oh and tough women too. This is where they stand to yell at the bus driver before they exit the bus. They will ride thirty blocks without a peep but when they enter the Tough Guy Zone and are about to leave they become!!

BACK DOOR CONAN’S! 

Now I know what your thinking, that the back door Conan’s sounds like a new all male review at Embers Night Club. You know all furs and swords and oiled bodies.. not that I would know, I’m just saying. 

What I’m talking about when I say Back Door Connan’s is the Fearless, barbaric, profanity laced, threat spewing denizens of the Tough Guy Zone.  They are here to let you have it and they are not afraid of you bus driver. Oh they only have that courage when they have their hand on the open back door and are about to exit, Look at how tough and scary they are.. then bye bye. 

Code Name: Bear Sneaky Drinky Zone or BSDZ

Location: First seats upper rear Deck

These are hard seats to see for the driver and the secret “can’t wait until I get home beer drinkers” are attracted to these seats like retirees are attracted to polyester. What they don’t realize is that with the windshield in front of me acting as a giant parabolic reflector I can detect a bear can opening at a 200 feet.. oh, a bus is only 40’ long so I can almost always hear it. 

I can sometimes even tell you the brand I have gotten so good at it. “Throw the 4 Loco out” I will say to the astonished faces of those hunched over in the BSDZ. 

Code Name: Cheat seats

 Location: Rear Most Seats Of the Bus

Slip a bad payment in the fair box, show a bad pass, pay the wrong amount and the odds are you are making a fast and direct line to these seats. The younger you are the more likely and the faster you will end up here. This is almost always followed by the mock shock when you are called out on your horrible attempt to ride free. 

“What! me!”  “I always pay!” and my favorite “I know you ain’t talking to me!” 

 Ask any driver in the USA and they will tell you the same story. everyone who cheats believes that these seats will protect them. Like there is a magic idiot protection field back here. I know it seems unbelievable that 90% of the cheaters would do the same thing, I doubted it myself, so I asked a Police Officer who rides my bus about criminals doing the same thing over and over. 

 “Shhhhh” he said putting a finger to his lips, “It’s a secret. Don’t let the criminals know because it makes police work way way  easier.”

Code Name: F'You Bus Driver Zone

Location:Driver side, Isle facing seats both across from the back door, and the rear upper deck.

These are not Back Door Conan’s cause they ain’t leaving. 

THese are those rare individuals we call 1%es. They are actually far less than 1% but the name is easy to remember. They come on ready to fight and of all the places they could sit they like it back along the side of the bus. See those seats are hard to be seen in. This empowers them to go off.  

Most of the altercations on my bus start from these seats as well. 

Like bad boys they don’t want to be seen face to face so they slump away to these seats where they turn away from the bus driver. 

once again the repetition part of this blows my mind but there it is. 

I have seen people get mad, stand up and move to these seats as if reading a script. As if knowing this is the place they can rant on and on and yet hide there face from daddy and Mommy.. Oops sorry, the bus driver. 

Code Name: Kid Magnetic Attraction Zone

Location: Last seats in the bus. 

Like the Sirens of Greek mythology the rear seats attracted all unattended children. It only takes a moment, while the parent wrestles their groceries into their seat for a child to sprint all the way to the back. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have heard a parent chasing their child who, hypnotically, breaks for the rear.   

You are now know what only a handful of nonbus drivers are even aware of. Please destroy your secret bus driver 3D Goggles and go about your bus ride as if you know nothing. Don’t let on, and don’t tell anyone. We have ways of tracking you, you know, A guy on my bus told me all about that, our secret Trimet Camera’s. We are watching..

 Got to go now..

 You all Roll Easy and don’t sit in the cheat seats or we will know.