When I pulled into the parking lot this morning, Francisco, the other bus driver was walking around my bus going through our daily pre trip inspection.
My bus!
On Friday, a tractor trailer clipped the side view mirror of Francisco's bus.
Without the mirror ,that bus is not road worthy.
Obviously, the decision had been made that he would use my bus, which means that I would be behind the wheel of the transit van.
That meant that I would spend the day getting in and out of the cockpit,opening the sliding passenger door for each passenger,pulling out the step and placing it on the ground,helping each passenger on to the van,getting in behind them and buckling them in before exiting the van, picking up the step and placing it back in the van before going back to the driver's side and climbing back in behind the wheel.
This on a day that was destined to soar to the mid 90's with 90% humidity!
Guess which one of the 7 dwarfs I wasn't!!
(Hint....it rhymes with snappy!).
I spent over 4 months from the end November to the beginning of March doing this on a daily basis, 50 - 60 times a day.
I had busted my butt to get my CDL so that I could drive my bus and not have to go through this rigorous routine ever again.
So why was it that I had to give up my bus.
As I said before, I wasn't Happy.
The average, yes average , age of my passengers today was over 90, all with some degree of physical limitations.
Putting the through the challenges of getting in and out of the van was patently unfair as well.
The day was starting out in spectacular fashion.
At some point as I made my way to my first stop, I realized that if I did not find it in myself to embrace the situation, my foul mood would only become a self fulfilling prophecy.
So I slapped on my best smile, pulled myself upright behind the wheel and sallied forth with a new , enthusiastic spirit.
There were plenty of complaints by my patrons.
There were encounters and trials at each stop that I could have met with resistance instead of affability.
Yet I persevered.
The day dragged on relentlessly as if with no end in sight.
We had rigged a temporary solution to the mirror problem on the other bus so by the afternoon run , I was back behind the wheel of my bus.
Before I knew it, I was on the last leg of my final run.
Pulling into The Colony, a spectacular , upscale complex in Ft. Lee, I was about to drop off my next to the last passenger of the day.
It was then that my bus began bucking and sputtering.
I looked at the dash board and saw that my check engine light was glaring at me. So was my oil pressure light and my temperature gauge was maxed out.
I was boiling over.
I dropped my passenger and made it back to the street,barely coasting to the curb.
There I was. Broken down in Ft. Lee with one passenger still left on the bus.
96 degrees ,in an overheated bus,baking in the bright sun.
Out went the S.O.S.
I had an elderly passenger who barely makes it home on a good day without needing a bathroom and any one and every one that could help me ha gone home for the day.
Well to make a long story short,as calmly as possible, I managed to contact the right people, who made all of the right moves.
In less than 30 minutes, I had my passenger on her way home and a tow truck was en route.
Eventually ,(it was rush hour near the base of the George Washington Bridge),the wrecker got to me,we got my bus on the flat bed, and we were on the way to the garage.
It was absolutely the perfect ending to an absolutely perfect day.
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