Bus Ride

So I was sitting on the bus today, staring out the window waiting for the trainee to stop hitting the brake so I could get home sometime this century, when we pulled up to a bus stop. No surprise there. But waiting to get on the bus was a little old man on one of those scooter-assist motor vehicles.

Let me take a moment here to address the awesome-ness that is the old person’s scooter. My Grandmother is a proud owner of one. And I have taken my share of laps around the living room on one of those bad-boys. I tell you, the thrill of pushing that speed dial all the way up from “Turtle speed” to “Bunny speed” is what a racecar driver must feel everyday!

Anyway. I’m on the bus. The ramp is lowering to let the old man scooter on up. People vacate the Senior citizens section. And I have a front-row seat for the show.

The old man makes it into the bus all right, but he doesn’t stop there. Oh no. He starts careening off the ramp, right into the inside of bus! Must be that sticky accelerator.

He jerks to a halt and starts to reverse (Yeah, that’s right! These things have a reverse!). The trainee is backed into a corner, not sure if she should help out or stay out of the way. The old man tries again. This time he slams right into the seats in front of me. He reverses and crashes into the other side of the bus. I can tell he’s trying to turn the thing around but it’s just not working out! Every time he moves, he either hits the bus or almost runs over the trainee.

The old man continues to go back and forth, back and forth, not really turning at all, for about five more minutes. This is when he decides he’s had enough and actually gets off the scooter to twist it around. The trainee stares blankly for a few moments before helping out (if by “helping”, we mean shuffling around the front of the scooter and letting the old man do all the work).

Finally he has it facing the right way, but he still hasn’t maneuvered it into, what I call, the “wheelchair car seat”. So he crashes into the side of the bus a few more times, before deciding he was close enough.

You know when you’re learning to parallel park, how you always seem to end up a few feet away from the curb? This old man had a good twelve inches between him and the wall. Poor trainee had a tough time making that secure.

And while the trainee finished tying him up to the bus, all I could think was: Man, it sucks to be old! Not only are you too damn tired to actually walk anywhere, but your depth perception is gone, and you have to deal with driving a scooter onto a bus full of judgmental college kids. God! What a nightmare! If I were him, I’d have half a mind to wack a few of those kids with a cane, or at least “accidently” run over their flip-flopped toes with my bad-ass scooter!

One thing is for certain. When I’m old and have my very own scooter, no matter how many things I crash into and no matter how many people I piss off, I’m keeping that dial turned all the way up to Bunny speed!