In the air the questions hang

After a long, crappy day at work, I stood on the train platform and pondered which end to board. If I got in at the very front, I could get off the train at Franklin and scoot around ahead of it before it pulls away, which ostensibly only saves me like five seconds but if there's a bus pulling up to the street below, five seconds can be awfully handy. If I got in at the end, I'd have a shorter walk to the other street bus stop, the one that goes towards the U of M. Front, home; back, visit Mara at Erbert'n Gerberts. On one hand, it's nice to see Mara, and she always gives me free food. On the other hand, I was tired, cranky, and not hungry. I had to flip a coin as the train was pulling into the station. It was heads. Ugh, fine, I thought to myself, and boarded the last car.

Metro Transit's been showing off their new fancypants hybrid buses lately by slowly integrating them into the routes and letting everyone ride them for free, which is a pretty sweet deal. I rode one to work this morning. By chance, I also hopped onto one after I got off the train. They're pretty slick, except I'm not entirely convinced about putting stairs in the middle of the bus. Usually there are stairs right at the doors, so the inside of the bus is all level, but the new buses are street level at the entrance and then halfway through the bus it jumps up three feet. I mean, I am not a professional bus designer, but I'm pretty sure there are going to be drunk people flying everywhere.

Anyway. My transportation mojo was strong; I'd only waited a minute before the train picked me up, and two minutes for the bus. Another twenty minutes and I'd be strolling into the 'Gerb, less than half an hour after getting off work. Perfect. I was seated in the first row of the raised part, behind some goofy wall of clear plastic that looked like nothing so much as those spit shields they have over the food tables at buffets. Some guy got up and started walking to the front of the bus as it neared a stop, and when the driver put on the brakes he stumbled a little and did the crazy "oh no physiiiiiiiics!" walk people do when they're suddenly moving faster than the vehicle in which they're riding, and didn't manage to stop until he was in the very front of the bus. Plugged into my ipod as I was, I wasn't really paying attention. It wasn't until a few minutes later, when a nervous-looking Somalian girl started tapping on the plastic in front of me and pointing, that I noticed the guy was still up there by the driver, and starting to shout.

I can say one thing for sure about the new hybrid buses: they are one smooth ride. I hadn't even noticed the bus driver quickly veering over to slam on the brakes at the side of the road after the guy punched him, they are that slick. I turned off the ipod to better hear what the yelling man had to say as other passengers fled through the back door. That damn plastic in front of me blocked most of the sound, though. As yelling man informed the driver and anyone who cared to listen that he did not, particularly, care for the Attitude of the driver, the driver called the police. As the driver called the police, yelling man informed the driver and anyone who cared to listen that this was not, in fact, a Situation, when did any manner of Altercation occur, did you all see him threaten the driver in any way yes that's right you Did Not. The four remaining passengers on the bus stared passively back at him in response. "You're making us late," ventured the guy in the farthest back corner. Unimpressed, yelling man attempted to wrest the driver's phone away, unsuccessfully, then stormed off the bus and wandered down the street. The police, who'd responded with remarkable alacrity, picked him up less than a block away.

Now that yelling man was gone the mood on the bus lightened considerably. The bus driver, beaming at his last four passengers as if we'd stayed around for him, just for him, and not because our stops were too darn far away to just walk, chattered amicably about how excited he was about being able to drive one of the new buses for the first time today. A cop came through the bus and took our contact information while we waited for the next bus to come pick us up. There was almost a sense of camaraderie as we boarded the new bus, looking smugly around at the bemused expressions on the faces of the passengers. Yes, our expressions said to anyone who cared to interpret them as such, We have survived...an altercation.

That sense of smug superiority lasted approximately forty five seconds, until the driver let a handicapped woman off the bus at the same stop we were at and the handicap access ramp wouldn't retract and it became immediately apparent that we were NEVER GOING TO LEAVE THIS CITY BLOCK EVER OH MY GOD

All in all, though, I'm glad the coin came up heads. I was downright jovial by the time I strolled into Erbert'n Gerberts over an hour later than expected. For whatever reason, whenever things tune into the right frequency of weird, I revel in it. There was that time back at Savers in Rochester, when the urinal experienced some kind of plumbing mid-life crisis and tried to redefine itself as a fountain and Andy and I were stuck mopping up the entire back end of the store until past 11. There was walking through the sculpture gardens in flat out pouring rain on my birthday last year. Even the Mr. Rickets adventure, thinking statue thoughts as a crazy man stood next to me on the bench and hollered at airplanes. Normal things scare me--I am absolutely beside myself at the notion of having to start going to a laundromat next month, even though Mara said she'd go with me the first time--but the weirder it gets, the less I am fazed.

I accuse video games.