Rainy February Saturday in LA con mi bicicleta. Was at UCLA. Library closed surprisingly really early. 5 PM. 5 PM!!! Unbelievably early. So much going into the freekin' renovation and they can't keep these motherfuckers out there one minute past 5 PM. Oh no, it's Saturday.
Anyhow, I biked over in a downpour to a bus stop on Westholme Ave. to ride the 761 Bus back to the San Fernando Valley. That was about 0.3 miles of biking.
And so the bus finally came. Maybe about 45 minutes after I got there. Put my bicycle up front, tapped my card, sat down in the front of the bus.
There wasn't really anything I noticed right away about the bus ride, except that it seemed like this bus driver was driving really fast. She was making tight turns as if she were driving a Civic.
Once we got into the valley, her driving got even more impatient. She was swerving from lane to lane, making liberal use of her horn for any cars that dared get in her way.
Instead of staying in just the right lane, she would weave in and out. I exchanged some knowing looks with passengers about how fast she was driving, especially in light of the rainy conditions.
It was a fast moving hour long bus ride.
I didn't really have a problem with her until I actually got off the bus. I probably wouldn't have cared about the swerving and weaving if she didn't do something extremely annoying at the very end.
That annoying thing had to do with me retrieving my bicycle.
I exited the bus from the rear (which is a direction I don't really understand unless there's a crowd of people). I was getting kind of impatient waiting for a throng of people to get off, namely because there was no one getting in and some old lady in purple slightly delayed my exit. The bus driver seemed like she was about to leave. The rear door closed and the bus made a sound like it was set to leave. I ran quickly over some puddles while getting rained on to claim my bicycle off the bicycle rack.
So in my state of hurriedness, I pull my bicycle off the rack. I get my bicycle on the sidewalk over the puddles.
Honk honk!
The bus driver shouts and makes a motion for me to pull up the bicycle rack.
I know it's common courtesy to pull up the bicycle rack and usually do so, but given the downpour, having already put my bicycle up on the sidewalk over some Red Sea deep puddles, and her apparent rush to move the bus, this motion she makes is slightly annoying.
I look at her exasperated. I walk back in front of the bus, and pull up the bicycle rack.
While she hadn't been particularly warm before, and had been particularly curt when she yelled at me, she looks at me through her window, with her penciled in eye-brows, and very obviously heavily made up face, smiles, and sends me a waving "thank you," right before she sped off.
I figured that perhaps her need to speed, her need to tell me to put up the bicycle rack was just all just one piece of ownership and control that she desparately needed to feel.
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