My
eldest lamblet is reveling in the fact that she no longer has to take the bus
to school. The bus was exciting for her for about the first year or two and
after that, its charms decreased exponentially as the days went by.
A
couple of years ago, as the incubator on wheels rolled up carrying its latest
load of downtrodden, viral and bacterial incubi, she looked at me and said,
“Mom, I don’t like the bus, it smells.” I looked her straight in the eye and
said, “It’s supposed to. The school bus is what steels you for future public
transportation.”
I’ve
had a love/hate relationship with public transportation. When I lived in the
city, I found it to be a godsend, a reasonable way to get around when your
destination was too far for a walk or the weather was not good. I’ve also found
it to be a place where anything and everything can happen. Aside from the usual frustrations that
accompany jamming a mass of irate humanity into a train at 5pm, it seemed I was
what my friends called, a weirdo magnet.
I
don’t know if it was my honest face, my kind aura, or the fact that I’m a
sucker, I was the target for odd mass transit events, some too distasteful to
mention here. I have though, been approached by the person requesting the time.
I, starting to answer before looking up from my book, realized only too late
that the man was literally wearing a tinfoil hat. He had just arrived on Earth
and was not aware of the time change. I cut that conversation short after he
asked me if I would take him sightseeing. One other man started rubbing my face from
behind. I felt my cheek being caressed only to hear him saying, “Your so soft.”
As I was trying to make contact with the CTA personnel (a good reason to have
CTA personnel in EACH car), the man suddenly launched off on to how I didn’t
like him because he didn’t wear a tie and apparently I only liked men who wore
ties! This outburst got the CTA personnel’s attention and the cheek caresser
was removed.
Not
all of my odd experiences on the L involved people seeking me out. Some merely
involved people who were in close proximity. My freshly lip-glossed lips once
became entangled in a woman’s furry coat. She was standing in the aisle, my
seat faced the aisle. The train took a curve at a fast speed. You get the
picture. Another time involved the often lurching stops the train would make.
Once again, I was seated and the person I was to come into contact with was
standing. It was a rather large man with an even larger belly. His shirt did
not quite cover it and I could see that he was sweating. The train stopped, his
belly did not. I was literally hit in the face with his moist, swinging flesh.
He didn’t seem to notice. It was all I could do to not throw up.
I
nearly lost it the day I was reading about Jeffrey Dahmer in the Sun-Times. The
paper went into vivid detail of how he prepared his ill-gotten game. As I read,
I could actually smell the sweet, rotting stench! It was different from the
frequent urine odor that wafted through the cars and over the platforms. It
wasn’t until I put my paper down that I realized it was a rotting corn cob that
someone had jammed into the heating vent. Ah yes, just another day on the L.
So
yes, I’m certain my daughter’s school bus smelled. I’m certain she was jammed
in with people she did not want to be pressed against, but I also knew of rides
to come and on those rides, the school bus will seem like nothing and she’ll
remember it smelling of roses.
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So, the new 
I was busy doing real work when the clouds parted and a 
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