So.
I ride the bus to work in the morning. I drive to a park and ride and then ride into the City. The parking area is down a steep hill from where people actually pick up the bus. The hill is big and the stairs and access ramps from the parking area to the bus pick-up are not convenient as the parking lot is very big and there are only 2 accesses. There is, however, a muddy eroded pathway from the most convenient spot in the lower parking lot straight up the hill to where riders need to pick up the bus – worn from desperate riders or those too lazy to walk to one of the more inconvenient vertical accesses. The “worn” path is scattered with rounded stones which provide some purchase, and represent the only semi-stable footpath. When there is any moisture on the ground (which is often in the Seattle area) those stones are somewhat treacherous on their own when wet. I’ve seen many, poor, hurried commuter slip and eat mud trying to navigate the path.
It is also important to know, that the bus driver will leave you. In fact, I believe they take grim satisfaction, in watching potential riders sprint for a 1/4-mile only to pull away right as soon as the winded rider approaches the bus. I often run for the bus. Often. Some mystical force in the universe has so ordered the cosmos to make my running for the bus virtually inevitable regardless of the bus schedule or my attempts to meet it. I run for the bus a lot. I’ve been left in a cloud of exhaust fumes after having run for the bus, a lot. It’s tough to be dignified while running for the bus and carrying a briefcase and a grocery bag full of daily food rations.
So this morning as I pull into the lower parking area, as usual, I see my bus pull into the pick-up aisle – another run-for-the-bus- day. So I hit the gas, and swing quickly into a spot just a few spaces closer to the hill than some poor fellow right behind me. I laugh a little internally at my small measure of good fortune.
Now – I drive a 96' Saturn. It sits really low to the ground (imagine sitting on a skateboard). I’m a big guy, and I usually struggle getting out of this car. Normally my brief-case gets caught on the emergency-brake or the gear shift, or I can’t open the car-door as wide as I’d like to be able to exit the car gracefully, so I sort-of fall out of it. BUT, today – I deftly laid hold of briefcase, expertly opened the car door the perfect amount, hit the lock as I fell out of the car and began running without so much as a hitch! I immediately congratulated myself at the efficiency of my own movement in this case.
So, I began to run for the bus. I notice that the guy who pulled into the space a little further away from me is about 10-ft behind me also running for the bus – but I am pulling away. I notice that I am gaining a sizable lead over the indescript body behind me, and I notice my own long and natural feeling stride and am a little surprised at how good it feels to open it up and run a little this morning – and I feel confident not only that I will make the bus, but that the poor slob I am leaving in my dust will not. Especially, since I see him out of the corner of my eye heading for one of the long switchback accesses to the upper pick-up area. I’ve got my eye on the worn-path – soggy ground be damned.
I hit the worn path at a sprint. And powerfully leap from one exposed stone to the other consuming several vertical feet with each movement. Each time my foot comes in contact with a stone it feels like it’s glued to my foot for the instant I need it, and then actually pushes me upward. As I power up the hill, I am shocked at my own agility and good fortune. Nearly to the top, I begin to think about a way to exit my “sprint” phase so as to seem nonchalant to those who are still waiting to step on the bus and those looking out the window on the bus. (yes, I am that concerned about strangers' opinions sometimes)
As I find a solid purchase for my right foot in one of my last lunges up the hill, I realize that my left foot has somehow found its way through my brief-case shoulder strap which I am carrying in my right hand. Not to be slowed or have my epic up-hill journey marred, I power off my right foot to gain a little elevation and attempt to remove my left foot from the loop like stepping out of a jump rope (this looked really easy in my mind). As I came over the top of the hill and onto the sidewalk, my foot got caught on the strap, pulling the strap and my briefcase to the ground and my body forward. As I was in a moving fast, I begin to trip as well, kind like someone who gets there foot hung in their pants or underwear and started hopping around – except also while running. After I covered about 15-ft of the Bus Aisle hopping and leaping trying to get my strap dislodged from in between foot and between my legs, I get a picture in my head of this overweight, out-of-shape, bald-guy with his bag tangled around his knees and between his legs hopping, hobbling in between lunging across a bus aisle. As this image is rolling across my mind, I trip and crane forward and rammed my face into the side of the bus. I felt the whole bus move.
Now I want you to imagine … sitting on a bus, and idly panning your vision out the window next to you. And in the space of 5-seconds or so you see this 250-lb wild-man come sprinting up a hill, then start thrashing about appearing to be strangling his own briefcase, then take three giant one-footed leaps across the street, and try to tackle the bus your sitting on…
After I shook off the head trauma, I laughed out-load and walked around the front of the bus. As I walked on the bus, still smiling, no one said anything to me or looked at me. As I sat down – this grandmotherly woman sitting next to the window, leaned over to me, a little unsure, and said “… I’ve never seen anything like that before …”.
