MIDDLE DIGITS

Driving a bus

will earn you

more than your

fair share

of middle digits

Its unavoidable.  When you drive something around that is eight-feet wide and forty-feet long, amongst vehicles half that size, you are going to incur responses, many of the them, unfavorable.

Your intentions may be innocent, but the perception of others may prove otherwise.  You do have a job to do, which means, pulling in and out of traffic on a continual basis, with a schedule to keep (theoretically), and a specific route to drive.  Some things are unavoidable.

In addition to those dynamics, you may have a bus that might not run properly, or even worse, break down in traffic--not a pretty sight.

One minor incident during the summer earned me one of the most classic middle digits I have yet to receive.  It was shortly after sunset on a warm evening, where traffic had subsided, and the pace was rather relaxed.  I was following behind an early-model Mercedes whose driver had his left arm dangling relaxed out the open window towards the ground.  I could not figure out why the street seemed so dark, and I could barely see anything clearly but the taillights of his car.  I decided to switch on my brights to see if that would improve my visibility, which it did.  It also set into motion the Mercedes’ drivers left arm, which slowly rose to a vertical position, and, at the last moment, sprouted a definitive middle digit in my direction.  It then slowly reversed all the aforementioned movements, to resume its original position.

The whole choreography was so classic, it deserved a YouTube moment, but, since this was not possible, I awarded it with a hearty laugh, and a return to my low-beams.

It was only after returning to the yard, that I discovered that one of my low-beam lights had burned out, thus creating the ‘dark’ street conditions that had precipitated my high-beams.

I wouldn’t have traded that middle-digit-moment for two properly-working headlights anyway.