BUS-ted.

(This is from a google image search for "people on busses." I've got no idea who they are.)

(My bus did look just like this. But empty.)

Last week, I did something I've never done before here on the Palouse: Public Transportation. Public transportation is not often needed when you live in the sort of town where you can park your car and forget it for days on end. But friends needed to borrow my car for the weekend--and on account of them always being willing to loan me money, or their baby when I really need to cuddle her--I said YES. I said, "I'll have no trouble getting a ride home from Lewiston." And I thought I was telling the truth. But then, I did have trouble getting a ride home from Lewiston.

So my dear, patient boss (who, at this point, probably would not be surprised if I asked her, "Hey, Mary, can you show me how to tie my shoes? It's so tricky!") explained how to catch the bus in Lewiston to get home to Moscow.

Apparently, you sit at the only bus stop on campus a little before 5:20, and when the only bus comes by...you board it. This made me very nervous. I convinced myself that maybe the covered bench that said "Bus Stop" wasn't actually the real bus stop. (It's too easy.) What if the real bus stop is actually that sign-less shady, grassy spot on the other corner of campus, and I'm sitting in this old, out of use bus stop like a total schmuck? (This really is how my mind works.) Then, I worried that I might get on the wrong bus! I consulted the transit map posted at the Bus Stop. I confirmed, again, that there is only one bus and it says "Moscow" when it is headed North, or "Lewiston" when it is headed South. I was already in Lewiston, so I felt pretty confident that I should board any bus that said: Moscow.

Can I tell you about this bus, that I did eventually successfully board? Well, it has twelve seats. Total. How many of them were occupied on this, my rush hour commute? One. Mine. I was worried that the bus driver would then try to talk with me, but good news! The bus shakes like that taxi cab that transports Bill Murray through space and time in Scrooged. Were I made of cream, I'd have been butter by the time I reached Moscow. I'd been churned.

With no music, no book (tooooo shaky), no talking to anyone (so loud!), I had the strange experience of being an entirely passive passenger. I had no responsibility! I was bored! There weren't even any other passengers to watch. When on public transportation, there is little to do but marvel at public transportation, and also to marvel at the fact that public transportation is, to me, worth marveling at.

But a girl can only marvel so long at the smell, the heat, and the sounds of a bus. I started reading every posted sign I could find. I saw bus schedules on which someone had written, "Obama and Biden" and then crossed out letters, writing over them so it read "Osama bin Laden." I saw a sign that said in jumpy bubble letters: "Anyone can ride the bus, Everyone should." Right next to it, a sign read: "The bus driver has the right to refuse any rider for reasons he/she sees fit. These include, but are not limited to anyone: apparently under the influence of drugs/alcohol; possessing offensive body odor; carrying communicable diseases; a danger to himself/herself or others."

Apparently not just anyone can ride the bus.

Then I thought: I wonder how many people in the world have, at some terribly low point in their lives, exhibited all four of those "grounds for refusal" at once? Probably a whole, whole lot. And of those people with body odor, communicable disease (yikes), and the potential for self-harm, how many of them have mothers, fathers, sisters, husbands, children who worry for them? How does a person become the odorous, dangerous, drunk type of bus rider? There must be a story for each and every one of them. They were babies with sweet-smelling heads. They were little kids who got nervous about school. Then, obviously, something changed: addiction, or illness, or tragedy. But they each have a place they're coming from, and a place they're trying to get to.

On crowded public transportation, I always watch like a hawk for that unsavory type of rider--and I stay well-enough away. But, probably because my bus was empty (I've got a heart, but it can be small and lazy), I was temporarily able to suspend judgment on all those people that bus drivers (wisely) refuse. And it felt nice, I felt lighter, to have put judgment away for even a little while. (At the end of the ride, a woman boarded who was a total mouth-breather, and I found myself, once again, a judgmental little wench.)

The good news for this slog is that I've got my car back, and once again I spend my drives singing terribly to songs on the radio. I haven't gone all bleeding heart for good, or anything.