Sunday, November 11, 2007

AND DELUSIONAL by jeff rose

I was running pretty late all night last night- where the hell did all these
people come
from?!! In any case, I was arriving at Interstate and Lombard inbound on the 4-
which
includes a stretch of road, a MAX station andtraffic signal that you can make
sometimes,
and other times with traffic backed up and the MAX pre-empting signals it can
take you
literally 10 minutes to get through. When you arrive on the block with the
station usually
if you get stuck 40-50 yards back people will just want to get off and walk
down,
sometimes people at the station will see you down the block and walk back and
get on. If
all your business is taken care of, all you have to do is pull up into the stop
by the station,
open your doors and let the announcement begin to play- then you close your door
and
just barely make the light!

That's if everything works out just right. When I pulled up to the stop
tonight, there was a
woman with a couple of kids and about 10 seconds on the crosswalk. The kids got
on
pretty quick and as they crawled up into the seats she yelled into the bus "you
kids go sit
down!!" [they already were- I can't tell you why, but for some reason it
*really* annoys me
when adults feel like they have to order kids around that are doing exactly what
they are
supposed to be doing!! I guess it's just a peeve.] In any case, the kids were
already sitting
down by the time the crosswalk was down to, like, 8. But the woman? It took
here the
remaining 8 seconds to get her... up into the bus and while I thought about
going with her
at teh farebox, I had a feeling that I'd better let her sit down. So I missed
the signal and
instead of just being a minute or two late, I was about 5 minutes late leaving
Interstate.

As I drove on down Albina, I remember thinking about that woman- I had made a
couple
of assumptions about her- one, that she was overbearing, and two, that she was
lazy.
People can't help making assumptions about people- we all do it, but most people
at least
entertain the notion that they might be wrong about them, especially when the
assumption is based on next to no information. When I find myself making
assumptions
about people I almost always keep it to myself. But, I know that other people
don't always
find it that easy.

Over the course of the trip, I had a several opportunities to help some of my
passengers.
At Killingsworth, for instance, I arrived at my farside stop just as the 72 was
leaving the
farside of Albina heading towards CTC (accross from it's actual stop). I
noticed a couple of
people getting off or walking from the bus. They weren't waving at me or trying
to get my
attention, or even really looking at me for that matter, but I slowed down and
stopped for
a second just to be sure that they didn't want me- but they did! They were
pretty shocked
that I'd stop for them and they thanked me repeatedly.

I had a couple of other nice interactions along the way, and when I got
downtown, about 5
minutes late, I had a girl come to the front of the bus wanting a 9. There was
one right in
front of me pulling out and I told her not to worry, we could probably catch up
to it at
Main Street and get her on it. I pulled in behind the 9 at Main St. and honked
3 times (the
"I've got a transfer for you" code and let her off to go get on it. Mission
Accomplished!! I
pulled in a little quicker that I usually would have, but nothing too out of the
ordinary.
After I let the girl off, the woman with the kids got off. I was smiling a
little smile of
having done a good thing for another human being and as the woman got off she
mentioned something about having *almost* fallen. Then without looking at me
she
mentioned something about a lawsuit, and how I wouldn't find that so funny.....
then she
accused me of laughing at her and intentionally TRYING to make her fall. All to
which I
simply said, "have a good night" or something like that. THEN, she looks up at
the bus
number and says that she's going to call in to complain about me. So I try to
briefly
explain to her that I didn't realize what had happened to her and that I was
simply trying
to help this girl catch her bus- THEN she tells me that I have some sort of
moral problem
or something!!! After I spent a model day helping people- earlier, I even
picked a guy
up OFF THE STREET and helped him up into my bus! He had a cane and had fallen
down
on the sidewalk 50 feet from a stop. I went back to see if he was OK and he
actually
wanted my bus. I helped him up and he grabbed onto my shoulder and I walked him
to
my bus and helped him on.

So my point. Everyone, at some time or another, misjudges other people. It's
better to try
not to. The woman with the kids has no idea who whe was throwing accusations
at. Had
she known the first thing about me, she would know that I simply don't laugh at
other
people's misfortunes, AND I always try to help people. In fact, out of courtesy
for her I
missed the light at Interstate so that she could sit down before I moved, and
that was the
reason that they girl (incidentally) almost missed her bus downtown. So I would
have to
conclude that I was probably right. She IS overbearing, probably lazy, and most
certainly
delusional!!

Hope you guys had a better night than me!

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