Surviving the Bus Ride from Hell!

SURVIVING THE BUS RIDE FROM HELL!

When I die, I’m not afraid of going to hell—I rode public transit while attending college.

Old Route 55 to Weber State University and back did more than prepare one for an eternity of hellfire and damnation; it helped one get there a little sooner.

One particular ride, while headed home from school in a torrential rainstorm, we noticed the windshield was fogged up. The bus driver stopped, wiped it down, and then adjusted a little fan above the glass so it would blow air on to the windshield to keep it clear. The driver also had to open her window so the outside air could be drawn in to assist the fan. This should have tipped all of us on the bus as to what kind of ride we were in for.

Our chauffeur hadn’t driven one mile when she had to pull over again, step outside the bus, and unstick the windshield wipers. By then, some of us were feeling a renewed interest in the "after life."

Things went downhill from there. After we finally put a few miles behind us, a lady sitting near the front could feel water dripping on her head. Yep, you guess it, the roof of the bus was leaking.

It wasn’t just a little leak, either, and we could see this lady was about to open her umbrella. Now, I’m not a superstitious person, but why ask for more trouble than we already had? Much to my relief, we talked her out of opening her umbrella indoors.

By now most of the others on the bus had closed their eyes and begun reciting the Lord’s Prayer. Me, I had to go looking for more things to worry about.

Examining the interior of that prehistoric vehicle, I noticed that not only were the side windows cracked but there was cardboard stuck between the sliding glass pieces in each section. After pointing this out to my fellow riders it was decided we’d be better off not knowing the reasoning behind this good old American ingenuity.

The peak of our worries came when our driver only laughed response to a question concerning the tread on the tires.

It was about this time, with rain dripping on us, the windshield steaming up, and no assurance about the tires, that the man sitting to my left confessed he was agnostic, but since the time we had left the bus stop he had learned to pray and hoped there was something to this life-after-death stuff.

Needless to say, I made it to my stop alive. As for those who still had a way to go? I don’t know how they made out, for you see, I drove the next day.