My Dog is Chelsea

Alright, people. I know it’s a holiday week and all, but only three people have requested copies of my Morning Mix! Come on! I am relying upon you for a source of procrastination and you are failing me.

In the spirit of seeking out better and more numerous avenues of time-wasting, I have decided to open up the music exchange to anybody who wants a CD—regardless of ability to send one in return. If you’d like a disc (and you know you do), send me an email with your address. It’s super easy. Just click on the “contact” page at the top of the screen. Or click here.

Anyway, I have another bus story to share with you: I forgot to get my new July pass last week, so when I boarded the bus the other morning I realized I’d either have to pretend my driver’s license was a bus pass (which works with some drivers) or cough up the $1.70 fare. Since I am an upstanding citizen, I chose the latter.

I fed my first dollar into the farebox, only to realize that the only other bill in my wallet was a $5.

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said in my best sympathy-garnering voice, “but I only have a five—or a nickel and a dime.”

He laughed. “Well, put in whatever change you got,” he said. “Don’t worry about it.”

“Thank you! I promise I will buy my July pass when I get downtown!”

But he didn’t seem to really care, and I picked a seat in the back and opened up my book. At the next stop, an older woman got on with two 5-gallon kitty litter buckets full of roses of all colors, obviously having just spent a good chunk of time “pruning” the rose bushes of the Red Cross parking lot, which sits in plain view of the bus stop. Behind her, a thin man in his thirties stepped on the bus.

He presented his pass the bus driver, who immediately requested that he take it out of his wallet for closer inspection. His was a weekly pass, and it works a little differently than mine, which is good only for a specific month. The weeklies are scratch-offs, so you buy one at any time and then scratch off 7 consecutive days, during which time the pass is valid.

This bus driver was obviously not familiar with this form of bus pass. “What is that?!” he said. “That thing ain’t good no more! It’s July now.”

“It’s good for the end of June and the beginning of July,” explained the rider.

“Nah-uh, that ain’t true. The passes start at the beginning of the month and end at the end. None of this ‘I can use it whenever.’ It’s valid only when it’s valid.”

“But it is valid, see? This is a scratch-off pass, not a monthly.”

“Let me see that!” The bus driver brought it close to his face. He didn’t like it. “Alright, take a seat, but don’t think you can get away with this every time! That ain’t right. Cheatin’ the system.”

The man sat down and the bus driver pulled back into the road, and proceded to lecture to the passengers. “It’s not that man’s fault, though. It’s TriMet! It’s their own damn fault for making such a stupid pass. With them scratch-offs, anyone can buy one and use it for a whole year! I mean, why does anyone ever pay for the bus? You can ride the damn thing for free, just scratch off them days and pretend it’s always valid. I gotta talk to a supervisor and find out about them scratch-offs. They really should get a better system, I mean otherwise you could use it all year long!”

At the Rose Quarter, the driver actually got off the bus and tried to find a supervisor to ask about the pass.

“Oh hell no!” said a woman in front of me, standing up. “I’m getting off this thing! This guy is crazy!”

When the bus driver came back, he had no answers and was still fired up. “Couldn’t find a supervisor! I’ll have to talk to someone as soon as I finish my shift. I need to learn how these scratch-offs work, because they don’t make any goddamn sense. How could the thing be good for a whole year?!”

He continued his lecture, repeating himself ad nauseum. At some point during the rant, he picked up his TriMet phone and started the whole thing over again. “Hi, can you connect me to a supervisor? I got a man who come on here with one of them scratch-off passes, saying it’s valid even though it’s July now and he bought the thing in June. How could that be? You gotta tell someone over there that they got some sort of security breach on their hands, what with making all these passes that are good for the whole year even though people only pay for a week. We getting ripped off!”

By the time I got off the bus, some fifteen or twenty minutes later, the driver was STILL yelling about the scratch-off pass—and to think he let me on for $1.15. Good thing I didn’t try the driver’s license routine! That would not have gone over well.