ANNA NICOLE SMITH

The other day I had a group of people on the bus debating the Anna Nicole baby/body situation. Seems like everyone has an opinion on this. It was very interesting to hear people who were otherwise strangers talk about the topic.

It is terrible, though, that it has come to this. I mean....really. Who WAS this woman and what did she contribute to society?? Don't get me wrong. I think she had a caring heart. But I also think she was a very sad person with serious drug problems that her "friends" not only didn't help her with but actually contributed to...or at least enabled.

I don't want to spend much time on this...as I feel it is already blown out of proportion. I just had a good time listening to the people on the bus discuss it. One guy said they should cremate her and sell her ashes on e-bay and give the baby to the highest bidder. Another guy insisted that the mom should get the body to bury in her family plot (that used to be my view until I realized she had already purchased a plot in the Bahamas and wanted to be buried there with her son). One lady said all these people were gold diggers and the baby should be put up for adoption anonymously. Interesting idea...but would never work.

As they all eventually left the bus, I thought how many different "solutions" there must be. Yet if you take away all the insane ones, it really does narrow the options! Hell, do a paternity test and give the kid to her father and bury Anna Nicole in the plot she had already bought for herself...next to her son.

STUFFED ANIMALS

Gave away a couple more stuffed animals to some adorable kids lately. It's a lot of fun.

One little boy was getting on every day with his mom. Every day he had some kind of snack. "I got Cheetos!" was how he greeted me one day. It was funny how he would repeat anything you said to him. I said "You're so adorable!" and he said it right back to me. It was hilarious, considering he probably had NO idea what he was saying. I brought him a stuffed zebra from the movie Madagascar. He thought that was pretty neat. They got off at the last stop at Uptown Transit Station every day. One day he decided to play around and when the back door closed before he got out he panicked. He started screaming bloody murder. I was trying not to laugh and trying to get him to come and go out the open front door. His mom was standing helplessly outside the back door looking at him. Then his older sister, who was with them that day, FINALLY came in the front door and took him out the back. By this time, he was so traumatized he was just wailing. He'll probably have nightmares about getting stuck on a bus for the rest of his life.

I also had the little boy that I had given the Batman doll to months ago get on my bus. The lady that is always with him (I don't know if she's his mom or a caregiver. He is mentally retarded and seems to also be hyperactive at times) informed me that Batman died. She said she had sewn him up as many times as she could but finally had to give up. The little boy had kept ripping his arms off. When he used to play with the doll on the bus, he would swing it around and bang it into things so I knew it wouldn't last long. I told her I was just glad a kid got some fun out of it. Otherwise, it would just sit on my dresser and that would be a waste. The kid had a new animal he was carrying around...a giraffe. I'm sure it will have a short lifespan too! Oh well, at least he is having fun!

Recently, I won a Pink Panther and an orange M&M with hands and feet. They are still on my dresser. I'm sure some little kids on my bus in the near future will be taking them home!

SUSPICIOUS COMMENDATIONS

Had a guy get on my bus a couple of weeks ago. He was telling jokes and basically entertaining me. I must admit, I kind of egged him on by joking around myself. When I got to the end of the route, he was the only one on the bus and didn't make any move to get off the bus. I asked him if he missed his stop. He said no and started using his cell phone.

I had a fairly short layover so I got on my cell phone and made a quick call. While I was on my call, I could hear him in the background. He was calling in a commendation to my company. I finished my call and he finished his. He told me he called in a commendation for me. I said "Well, isn't that nice...and I didn't even PAY you! Thank you." He laughed and said "Hey, can you do me a favor?" I knew it...you don't get something for nothing these days. I hadn't agreed to do anything BEFORE the call, so I didn't feel obligated. I asked him what he needed. He said he had a new cell phone and asked me to call him from mine to make sure his would ring. I wasn't born yesterday!! I told him I didn't do stuff like that because then people I don't even know would be running around with my phone number. He got a "busted" look on his face and scampered off the bus.

Days later I got the commendation. I told my boss about the guy and he rubbed it in saying, "Isn't that nice? You got this commendation from the guy...on VALENTINES DAY!" Even my boss is a comedian!

Today I got a note to see my manager again...it was another commendation. Strange. You can go months...years even...without ONE commendation. Here was a second one in a matter of a couple weeks. HMMMMMM.... when I read it, it said what a nice person I was. So nice that the dictionary didn't have enough good words to describe me. It said some other favorable things about me. I was feeling kind of GREAT there for a minute. Then, at the bottom where there are notes from the person that took the call, it said the guy wanted them to give me his phone number. HMMMMMMMMMMMM....I have a feeling I know who called that one in!!

JUST ONE OF THOSE DAYS

Had one of those days I wished I had just stayed home. Seemed like one thing after another went wrong.

It started before I even pulled the bus out of the garage. My antifreeze was hard to see through the little glass bulb. It looked like it was empty. We are no longer supposed to add it ourselves due to some additive that they started using that can burn you if it comes into contact with your skin. I told the mechanic that drives around on his cart during the AM pull outs that I needed the antifreeze checked. I went back to continue my pretrip (checks that you are required to do on the bus before you pull out). I had about 2 minutes left and the mechanic was nowhere to be found. I called the dispatch desk and they radioed him to send him over. I ended up pulling out about 5-6 minutes late...not a good thing.

I got onto the highway and the bus wouldn't go over 30 miles per hour and the "check transmission" light came on. I called the control center and explained the problem...not a good place to be going 30 MPH during rush hour...and they advised me to pull over and shut the bus off. I did so and when I restarted it the problem was fixed. It's always fun pulling into speeding rush hour traffic from the shoulder in a bus!!

The day seemed to be going better...but it was just fooling me.

I was pulled over making a bus stop and looked into my rearview mirror. Some fool in a white full sized van nearly hit the back of my bus. He swerved and missed it and seemed to realize he almost hit someone in the next lane over. He over-corrected and swerved back toward me. His mirror and my mirror met. His came totally off the van and landed in the street and mine got shattered. He slowed and seemed to be pulling over when all of the sudden he seemed to have changed his mind. He sped off. Like a fool, I didn't get the license plate. I did notice that it was one of those tax exempt state plates. I called control again and told them there was enough of a chunk of the mirror and the convex mirror was still attached that I could continue. The fix it guy met me at the other end and gave me a new mirror.

I figured the day would mellow...it didn't.

I asked a guy for ID who had gotten on using a monthly mobility pass. ID is required to use this form of payment. He said I don't check the white people (he was black) for ID and basically called me a racist. I got pissed. How dare he! If he rode my bus any length of time he would see I ask for ID from everyone that is required to show it. I found out why he chose to throw race into it...he didn't have proper ID. I was so flustered by this point, I didn't even have him pay a legitimate fare...that's not like me at all!! As he rode, he saw that I did ask EVERYONE paying the mobility fare for ID, regardless of color or anything else. This city and the route I was driving is very ethnically diverse. A racist wouldn't last long here, or as a bus driver in a big city period. By the time he was to get off, he realized he was being a jerk and apologized to me on the way off.

The funny thing was, he watched as a white teenage girl got on and put in a brand new monthly mobility card. I let it go in and stamp the date onto it, thereby activating it and starting the clock ticking on the month it may be used. I asked her for ID and she, of course, didn't have any. I told her it was a felony to do what she did and that she needed to pay a fare or hop off the bus. Her boyfriend was behind her waiting to put HIS mobility card in ( I saw it in his hand). They both got off. Then he realized the card had been punched with the date and yelled at the girl. She, in turn, turned to the bus and called me an f'en biotch. I smiled and drove off.

To top off the day, I got to go in and fill out the half hours worth of paperwork from the guy that hit my mirror and took off. I just wanted to go home at this point.

Well, it was just one of those days!! They make you appreciate the "normal" days when things go well!

GOD RODE MY BUS !!!!

Imagine my amazement when GOD himself walked up the stairs of my bus the other day. He wasn't at all what I pictured, though he did slightly resemble the pictures of Jesus Christ that I have seen. He had a scruffy beard and a thin, oval face like the pictures. I was surprised that he wore glasses. They were thick framed baby blue glasses. They matched his fuzzy baby blue ear muffs. (Seems even Gods' ears get cold in Minnesota!)

I suppose you want to know how I KNOW it was actually God...Well, that is obvious. He had a baby blue baseball cap on that matched his glasses and ear muffs. On the cap in about 3 inch BOLD baby blue letters, it said "GOD". DUH! Doesn't get more obvious than THAT!

Surprisingly, God used a mobility card to pay his fare. Feeling a little intimidated, I didn't ask for ID to show proof that he wasn't cheating. He sat in the first forward facing seat on the passenger side. He was very quiet until suddenly, he broke out laughing. Then he started clapping wildly and barking like a seal. I was shocked! Then God got up and walked up to me and extended his hand as if to want to shake hands with me. Thinking this may NOT be God and may actually be an escapee from the mental hospital, I just gave him the thumbs up. He gave me a thumbs up back and returned to his seat.

After that loud outbreak, I kept an eye on him in my big rearview mirror that looks back into the coach of the bus. As I watched him, God started picking His nose!!!! Imagine my shock, once again. He had his index finger so deep into his nose you couldn't see the first knuckle!! Then I realized how smart it was for me not to have shaken hands with God. Ick!

You just never know WHO is going to get on the bus. That's why my job can be so fun!!