I really hate the rain.
Well, not really. I hate the rain when I have to go to school. Rather, I hate the rain because it means I have to take the bus rather than the motorcycle. Not that I mind public transportation, in fact I'd rather take public transportation than drive anywhere. I'd rather take the bike than anything else, though.
The problem is that here, unlike most other places I've lived, public transit is denigrated to the realm of the homeless and the mentally unstable. Couple that with the fact that I live right next the the Social Security building and you have a recipe for hilarity.
Austin has two bus systems. The municipal buses run and cost seventy five cents. Then there is the University bus system. It runs all through town, but only to and from the University and is free to students, but costs money to the general public, though this is not enforced, making the UT shuttle bus system free for all. However, the UT system is not advertised to the general public, so most people outside the University don't really know where or when the UT buses run.
I have to set this up because the only bus that runs with any regular service from my house is one of the UT shuttles. There is a city bus, but it's a feeder route that only runs once every 90 minutes. Not a very good system for being next to the Social Security building.
Anyway, I get to the bus stop and guy with a really strong Cajun accent asks me how he should get to downtown, which is a problem, since none of the buses from near my house run downtown. I tell him to take the UT shuttle bus and from there connect to the number 37 that will take him downtown. Now we're best friends because I helped him out. Now it was my turn to help him out more.
Apparently, his mother had just died and he was on disability. That wasn't the least of his problems. His big problem was the police. They were after him. The police wanted to steal his identity so that they could collect his disability checks (or cheques, for the Limeys... I want you guys to be able to understand this story too) and cash in on his mother's inheritance.
Of course, when the bus arrives, he sits down next to me and demands that I help him find a lawyer because all the police that after him are going to "end up in the penitentiary when I'm done with them." And just to put me at ease he told that he had spent time in some Louisiana Parrish's county jail on "some trumped up charges after the PO-lice beat me in the head with a crowbar to try and kill me", but he assured me that in jail he stopped having delusional thoughts and psychotic episodes. Naturally, that put me at ease.
Crazies on the bus are never fun. I've been accosted by the huggy lovey Jesus freaks, the angry drunks, as well as assortment of unstable mental cases. It happens everywhere. I remember one time on the Tube in London, this woman showed up with a Velociraptor puppet. She was really good at making its movements seem lifelike but when you looked into her eyes, there was something missing. Her eyes were there, but they had a strange vapid, almost vacant look to them. Very creepy.
I always wonder why these loons always gravitate to me. It's doubly perplexing, because most women that turn out to be stabby stalkers know better than to try to approach me, or if they do, realize very quickly that I'm not for them. For more information, talk to
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geektron.
And the arthritis in my knee is acting up today. Fuck that Volvo that threw me off my bike... This is one of the long term effects from it.
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