In Front of the Yellow Line
By Shawn Wells
My Obsessions
Recently, I watched an episode of "Hawaii 5-0" in which the character Danny "Danno" Williams gets his car stolen while he's spending time with his kids. As part of the quality family time, he had insisted that he and his teenage daughter leave their phones in the car. So now, stranded on the wrong side of the island with no car and no phone, he now sees his best option to be taking a bus back home. Telling his kids "you meet some interesting people on a bus."
For some reason, this plot point gave me a little thrill. Partly because of the mention of the interesting people his children are bound to encounter (pretty much the basis of this blog) but also because of the kinship I now share with this character. He's suddenly more relatable to me. It's like when you go to a concert and the lead singer yells out the name of your home town. Or when you're reading a book and the author mentions one of your own pastimes as something the protagonist enjoys. Just gives you a giddy thrill. "Oh wow! They're just like me!"
As you can imagine (or if you watch Hawaii 5-0) the story of Danny's bus ride doesn't end there. During his ride home, his bus happens to pass his stolen car. Well, of course the next course of action is to use his law enforcement influence and get the bus driver to persue the car thief. Sitting on my couch, a snort of laughter escaped my face. My wife looks at me and say "What are you laughing at?" I said "The fact that they expect to catch that car in a bus." "Thought as much." my wife responded. Really, in my humble opinion, there is no way a bus would manage to keep chase with ANY car let alone the fancy suped up Camaro that Danno just had stolen from him. (Plus, don't get me started on all the other flaws regarding the bus in this episode) And then, when things get really intense, Danny lets everyone else off the bus and takes over the driving duties himself, handling the bus like a pro.
Sure, Hollywood always takes liberties. I have to be willing to let things go and just enjoy the entertainment presented to me. But here's the problem with that: I'm easily influenced by my surroundings. It's always been a problem for me. In my life, I've had a couple dozen different jobs. Quite often when I start working for a new employer, I become obsessed with whatever that company's specialty is. Things that I wasn't interested in before I started working there, I suddenly become a huge advocate for. I've sold car audio equipment and ended up with subwoofers installed in my car. I worked in a furniture store and became very interested in home decor. A chef in a restaurant made me broaden my flavor horizons. A job in a hardware store made me want to renovate things. And so on.
Well, working as a bus driver is no different for me. Never in my life have I been interested in busses, until I started working on one. In fact, after watching that particular episode of Hawaii 5-0, one of the first things I did was email my friend who lives in Hawaii to ask her about the accuracy of the episode. Things like whether that is actually what their busses look like or whether those are the uniforms the drivers there get to wear. The answer was yes, by the way. THAT stuff, at least, was accurate. Man, I'd love to have a Hawaiian shirt as a uniform. It would be like Weird Al Yankovic driving a bus, which if you know his extensive and legendary music catalog, he actually does have a song about.
I'm off on a tangent. The point is, now that I'm a bus driver, I'm quite fascinated with how "the other half live" so to speak. I now notice the difference between my busses and other city's busses when I'm on vacation. I've even had friends humor me in my obsession and take pictures of local busses when they're on vacation as well. And I'm always fascinated by even the small differences. A picture one friend took for me in Pittsburgh showed busses that list the current temperature on the display. A picture a friend took in Vegas showed much different mirrors than my bus. And of course, the double deckers in London. Before I started working this job, I would've never noticed the busses but now I want to see them.
Even for places I have been before, but before I started driving one, I now want to see these busses I never noticed when I was there. I guess I'm a bit of a nerd. Naturally curious. However, not so curious that I'm willing to Google it to satisfy that curiosity. It means more to me when a friend takes a picture for me. And I'm also just interested in how they look. It's not like I know all the specifications of each individual bus. I'm just a casual observer. I'm not as obsessed as that guy that was in my training class. That's right, I'm talking about you, Mark.
But for those of you who have never driven a bus before, let me at least set one thing straight. In real life, a bus is not going to keep up with a Camaro. I'm sorry to destroy that illusion for you.
From in front of the yellow line, that's how I see it.
