Years and years ago, when I rode the bus, I had no trouble. But I moved the from the big city for just a few months, and when I came back to visit the city, the buses had changed. Routes and schedules had changed. I was a bit at sea.

And the number of the bus I thought I needed, and which I thought stopped where I needed to go proved to be illusory. There was some sort of split routing on that busline, and the first number of the bus of the seemingly correct number turned out not to go where I needed to go. So I got off and waited for the next bus of the same number.

It finally got there, opened its doors. And so I asked the driver, does this bus go to Gresham? (Or wherever I wanted to go; it's been quite some time.) He burst into utter disgust: What does the sign say on the bus? and then began cursing at me as I wandered on.

Nowadays I'd have the gumption to respond back, in kind. The man deserved more than a good tongue lashing; he deserved a little physical abuse, like, say, a stink bomb or a rotten egg. But who has rotten eggs at the ready?

My late aunt once told me a similar story. She asked the bus driver if the bus were going to . . . wherever. And he, too, burst out: What are you, blind?

She burst out into tears and sniffed Yes, walking away. She was legally blind. Oh, she could walk about. But she couldn't read bus signs.

What a contemptiple example of swine that bus driver was. And so many are. Not most, surely; but far too many.

Oddly, now that I think of it, in my episode, it may have been an improperly displayed bus signage that confused me originally. Bus drivers should remember that the cause of many questions are, indeed, the result not of inattention or stupidity of bus riders, but problems arising from other bus drivers' mistakes . . . or from bad planning, or simple natural problems, like poor eyesight.

Regular riders sometimes wonder aloud why most people don't like riding the bus. The answers are many, including the usual: that buses rarely go where we want them to, when.

Often, though, it's because other bus riders are stinky, dangerous, and rude. And this, too often, applies also to the professionals who drive the buses.

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