Back of the bus!

It's pretty hard to live in a big city without developing a few urban-inspired pet peeves. When I lived in New York City, it was the constant jack hammering. A city that never sleeps is a city in constant state of development. It seemed city workers were always tearing up one street and patching up another, just to do it all over again in another part of the neighborhood.

When I lived in Miami, it was the frenetic driving. You had senior citizens driving 20 miles an hour along side Latinos who had learned to drive in other countries with apparently no speed limits or turn signals. I'd never seen anything like it. At least in NYC, there was some logic to the driving. Everyone was just trying to get wherever they were going as fast as vehicularly possible. In Miami, I have no idea what people were doing.

In Chicago, it's my fellow commuters. The huddled masses who stand beside me in sub-zero temperatures waiting for express bus No. 134 that will take us downtown in 7 minutes flat. As the No. 134 swings onto our street, we shuffle like elephants toward the spot where the bus driver will come to a screeching halt, swing open the doors and let us load.

That's where the problem starts, and when my blood begins boiling.

By the time the bus reaches our stop, it's already picked up many, many people. In short: it's packed. All the seats are taken and I can see through the windows that the aisles are filled with passengers. Because it's an express bus that only runs during commuting hours, the No. 134 is typically a double-long bus, with an accordion-like middle (the technical term, according to Wikipedia, is articulated bus). No matter what it's called, there should be plenty of room for all of us.

As I shuffle forward, trying to edge out the guy next to me as we create a human funnel, I peer through the tinted glass at those inside. I shake my head at the gaps between passengers in the aisle. Those toward the middle and back of the bus are too spaced-out or engrossed in their Kindles, iPods and Blackberries to move back so that those of us who aspire to get on have the room to do so. They just stand there, oblivious to the long line of us out in the cold, content with their "on the bus" status.

We of the herd push forward, squeezing into the area next to the driver, smashed like bugs against the front windshield as we maneuver around each other to swipe our bus passes against the farebox.

"Move to the back of the bus!" some of the drivers will yell (those are the drivers I love). "All the way back! All the way back!"

The crowd stirs, moves a few inches and goes back to its commuting slumber. Shoulder to shoulder with my neighbors in the front, I seethe. Have they never been the one out in the cold, worried they wouldn't make it on? Worried they'd freeze to death waiting 10 minutes for the next bus, be late to work and get fired?

I think of the news report I saw years ago about workers in Tokyo whose sole job was to pack people into the overcrowded subways at rush hour. Called oshiya (pushers), they wore white gloves of course (this is Japan we're talking about) and shoved as many passengers into the train car as possible, holding the bulging masses in until the doors closed behind them. At the time I marveled at its absurdity. Now it sounds like a damn good idea.

"I need that mirror!" the bus driver yells at those of us mashed together in the front, as the doors close, nearly taking our limbs with them. "I need that mirror!" he yells again at us innocent victims in the mosh pit, as we try to jostle out of the way so he can see out of the rear-view mirror.

On my way home from work, this scenario repeats itself in the reverse direction. Except for one night, when I had a bus driver who refused to pull away from my stop until everyone moved back.

"Make two rows in the aisles, people!" he yelled. "Two rows! That's why there are straphangers on both sides."

I could have kissed him.

"People just don't listen," I told him as I boarded.

"Well they're gonna listen this time," he told me, peering into the mirror above him to see whether passengers were complying.

"I am not moving this bus until everyone has moved back!" he yelled.

Suddenly the crowd lurched back, creating wide open space for those of us just boarding. I knew it was there. That my longstanding resentment was not built on illusion. My shoulders relaxed as I realized the guy at the wheel was ready and willing to fight my secret battle. Better yet, he had the power to do so.

The challenge with urban pet peeves is that they are way bigger than you are. I can't stop the jack hammering in New York any more than I can make Miamians better drivers. As much as I'd like to, I can't teach Chicago commuters required courses on proper bus loading etiquette.

Instead, I am left trying to breathe through my left eyelid and think of bunnies and flowers until my inner rant has subsided. Sometimes I just wish the world would change so that I didn't have to.