Suicide Bus

A friendly, YEAR ROUND reminder not to fire your gun into the air on New Year's Eve.After no small amount of thought and planning, I have successfully achieved the rank of "Guy Who Lives In L.A. and Has No Car."  I started taking the bus to work.  I noticed that when I told my friends I was taking public transit they tended to react like I had just told them I was considering suicide.

"Oh my god!  Are you alright?"

Family members started calling.

"We hear you're...thinking about riding the L.A. metro."

"I am taking the metro."

"OH MY GOD! (Covers mouthpiece and yells to another family member in the room)  It's true!  He is!!  What do we do???" 

Their concern is not entirely misplaced.  The first time I took the subway in L.A., somebody punched me in the face on the escalator.  Long story short, I proceeded from that incident to get indignantly drunk in Hollywood.  Really, it's the only way there is to be drunk in Hollywood.  The first time I ever took a bus, somebody threw up on my head.  The upshot of that was, I had a legitimate reason to spend $40 on a tour T-shirt when I got to the show.

MTA lady in the background grudgingly "Letting this one go."I am very wary of the "third foot" falling in my public transit saga.  What affront will complete my L.A. metro trauma trifecta? This is why I have no idea what led me to help out the homeless lady at the bus stop.  Between 50 and 100% of my two previous encounters had been homeless themed (there had not been time for an exit interview in either case), and I had no real motive to escort my luck into this volatile arena.  Well, I dunno.  Kindness?  

She appeared to be about my age, either my age or perhaps a thousand years old.  I hear it takes a thousand years for the earth to grow one inch of topsoil, and she had at least that much on her.  While waiting for my bus, I saw her being hassled by an MTA employee and something drew me to her defense.  I told the MTA lady that the homeless lady was my friend from out of town, I had dropped her off and would be coming back to pick her up later.  It worked - no vomit, no fisticuffs.  A temporary reprieve.

I'm still pretty sure there's a third something out there with my fate on it though.  Sometimes whatever doesn't kill you just makes you want to move out of L.A.