FourBux

G’day guvnah.

I love to drive. I’m a driver’s driver. I’ll volunteer to drive to any event, almost any distance. I had actually volunteered to drive from Phoenix to Ohio on Saturday because a friend and his family are moving and had no way to get the second car out there. They eventually found someone in their family who would make the trip, but I was planning on it!

As with all cars, sometimes my car needs to go into the shop. When it does, I mourn for a little bit, then ride the bus to work, or to the garage, or wherever. I could find someone to give me a ride, sure, but I feel using public transportation keeps me connected to the community. Or something.

Why not? In Chicago and Boston (two cities I’ve recently visited, so of course I’m an expert), mass transportation is they way to go. It’s cheap, relatively quick, and widespread. It’s a good way to get around without having to really deal with the other drivers.

Phoenix, it seems, has a different idea. I’ve often said that the metro bus system here is an extension of the local penal system, which may sound harsh, but it seems to be accurate. In the Phoenix area, the busses aren’t used by everyone. They seem to be used by folks who have no other way to get around. Sure, there are people who ride the bus because they don’t have a car, and I’m not begrudging them that. When it’s 110 degrees, ain’t nobody riding bikes or walking. It’s the people who look like they’re on the bus shopping for other people who I have a problem with. Every time, there seems to be someone on there who looks like they would just as soon strangle you as look at you. Or, there’s these type of people…cue the memory harp…

A few weeks back, I dropped my car off at the shop, and hopped on the bus to go to work. Since it was morning, the bus was packed, and I had to stand. Not a big deal, until our bus got stuck behind the single vehicle on the road slower than we were: the dreaded school bus. Stopping at every regular bus stop, then at every school bus stop, it took us forever to get to my transfer. Big surprise, once I got there, I had missed the connection.

Sitting patiently on the hot concrete bench, I had edged over far enough to let the other stop’s transferee sit next to me, but she wasn’t having any of it. She somehow managed to get herself wedged into the 7-inch wide shadow being cast by the street light pole, and is tradition in Arizona, if you have shade, you hold onto it. This didn’t stop here from shouting complaints to me over the roar of the traffic about how the driver should be fired, she’s going to lose her job, yadda, yadda. I was going to let her use my phone to call in, but figured she’d get angry all over it. You can’t just wipe that off.

From across the street, a guy dressed in teal hospital scrubs jaywalks through the rush hour traffic, over to our stop. He’s holding a cup of coffee, and looks strangely like Tony Sinclair of Tanqueray gin fame. I assume he’s a doctor. There’s a hospital diagonally across the corner from where I’m sitting, so it would make sense. He approaches the woman standing in the shade and begins to talk to her, using typical street slang. “Weird” I think, but I used to watch ER. I know not all doctors are Ivy Leaguers. She shoos him away, and he heads in my direction.

He walks up and sits down next to me, and before he says a word, he noticed a piece of trash on the ground in front of me that I hadn’t seen before. It was a discarded box that once held Lindt chocolate cookies. The guy, I’ll call him Tony, begins speaking to me in what seems to be a genuine British accent! He starts out by telling me that when he was growing up in Manchester, they used to have tea and cookies every day, and that the Lindt cookies were some of his favorites. Completely taken aback, I let him continue on for a few minutes, just to see where it went. Then he gets really zen about it:

“Now remember: wine is for discussion, coffee is for decision.” Wow. And here I thought you were just crazy. While he expounds on that statement, I take a peek into his coffee cup and it appears to be just discolored water with leaves floating in it. Not tea leaves, mind you, but eucalyptus leaves, like off the trees behind us and beside the road. Like this cup was a prop, made to look like tea. Okay Tony, now you’re kind of starting to weird me out. I’m really starting to start to wish the bus was in sight.

At this point, the previously shaded woman comes over and tells him to get lost. I thought she decided that I’d had enough, but I now think she really only wanted to sit down. He stands up, shakes my hand, and says, still in the formal British accent, “G’day, Guvnah.” Then he walks off.

I’m still trying to figure out if he was really English, or pretending, or what, when Mrs. Sunshine sits down next to me. “I wish the nut-house was still giving out $50 for each kook you brought in. I’d make a fortune just on this street,” gesturing to what I now realize is the state mental hospital across the way. Ohhhh…

Sometimes the light comes on slowly.

As I watched my new friend Tony walk away, he stops at a pay phone and has a full conversation with a dead line, and I have to wonder: was he acting, or just nuts? Did the box of European chocolates on the ground kick him into the euro-version of himself? A few seconds later, he bursts into raucous laughter, exclaiming in his perfect British accent, “Please deposit thihty-fav cents! I say!” And then wandered off down the street. And I swear, he pulled out an American flag and waved it like a maestro conducting an orchestra as he whistled.

Thanks for the memories, Tony.