I like this!

By some SF-commute miracle this (Monday) morning, I walked onto an empty bus.  Unless you also spend your weekday mornings smashed in a crowded, standing-room-barely, sometimes smelly bus – you won’t appreciate the miracle of an empty morning bus ride.  In my 6 years of taking SF Muni to work every day,* this has NEVER happened to me. The bus was empty and quiet and I had a seat.  I was beyond grateful.^{*every day except for the days I can’t handle it and take a cab.}

When we pulled up to the Van Ness bus stop however, a woman was waiting with some type of walker-cart-chair situation, and needed the ramp lowered in order to get onto the bus.  Unhappy with how the bus driver lowered the ramp, walker-woman (we’ll call her) demanded the driver move forward and do it again.  So the bus driver did, and walker-woman climbed aboard.

Several stops later, through the music in my headphones, I heard yelling.  So I take one headphone out and realize it’s walker-woman yelling at the bus driver again for how she’s lowered the ramp.  The bus driver has raised her voice to match walker-woman’s but her patience was evident.  She wasn’t getting upset, she was speaking loudly to walker-woman as if she was speaking to her own stubborn, hard-of-hearing grandma.

Walker-woman finally gets up to get off the bus, clearly thinking she was about to prove the bus driver right – that she was NOT going to be able to get down this way.

When, to no surprise of the bus driver, walker-woman is able to roll herself and her stuff onto the sidewalk, the bus driver responds to the yells that are still being hurled in her direction with “Have a nice day!”

So before I got off at the next stop, I hand the bus driver a be grateful, please sticker and say, “I want to give you this.  I think your patience is incredible.”

She doesn’t have time to respond before I’m off the bus but about two steps away I hear her yell, “I like this!”

I sit in a comfortable chair at work and can listen to my favorite music on repeat while I ignore most of the world and I STILL lose my temper.  Be grateful, please.