Just a Taste

So when I ride the bus, I try to grab this one specific seat every time. The 358 is an articulated bus configured as such: a front half of the bus that has seats arranged in a way you'd expect, a rotating center that pivots and seats four, and then a back half with seats and its own door. Near the front of the back half, if that makes any sense, is a single seat all to itself. It faces sideways rather than forward, so you get a good view of everything going on in the back. See my attached diagram, it's the seat in red. I have dubbed this "The Jump Seat." It has many advantages, namely that because it's a single, I never have to sit next to a smelly-ass crackhead. Plus, it's got a great view of the circus.

So this picture is from Thursday night. This woman and her crackhead boyfriend sat right beside me (I'm in the jump seat). She was munching on McDonald's, getting the crumbs caught in her ample facial hair. Seriously, she has a better goatee than I do. The picture doesn't quite catch the soul patch, mostly because the hair was as ghostly white as her face, which hadn't been out of her crack den to see the light of day for a while.

There were some loud idiots in the back ranting about some crazy shit, and this lady has the audacity to snicker at them. Like, "hehehe, hey Brian, you and me are so different than those crazy people. Clearly, we are cut from the same cloth." Sorry to break it to you, but obese lady with a goatee, you get lumped in with the rest of 'em.

Wherefore art thou a judgemental asshole?

So here's the story: I started working in downtown Seattle back in November 2008. It just so happens that my wife and I live in a fairly ghetto part of town. Scratch that, a transitory ghetto part of town. I'd say it's in the process of being gentrified, but that's probably a little too generous.

For those readers familiar with Seattle, I live a block off 85th and Aurora. As Seattle is neighborhood-based, we live in JOA (Just Off Aurora). It's not Greenwood, it's not Greenlake, it's not Maple Leaf, it's not Northgate. It's all these neighborhoods, none of these neighborhoods, and so much more.

The bus line that services Highway 99 (aka Aurora Avenue) is the 358. It used to be called the 359, until a rider SHOT AND KILLED the driver, then himself, and then the bus careened off the side of a bridge, killing two more passengers. They changed the route number to 358 because really, who would ride the 359 after something like that?

"What bus do you ride home?"
"The 358."
"Isn't that the one where the driver was shot, and the bus crashed off the side of a bridge?"
"Nope, that was the 359. The 358 is totally different."

Just read this Yelp review of the 358 (Seriously, there are bus route reviews on Yelp? That's odd.)

So, dear readers who aren't yet reading, sit back and enjoy. My daily rides on the 358 are so crazy, I felt compelled to share them with you all. These posts will be "hater-ish" in nature, so I apologize in advance. I will try to post pictures from the front lines when I can, but some of these dispatches will be sans photographic evidence.

Lastly, I don't want my readers to think that I hate the 358. In fact, I kinda love it. I hope you will come to love it, too.