What to do for 45 Minutes?

It takes about 45 minutes (give or take) to go from one end of the valley to the other, via the "Orange Line". Which is great cuz it takes about the same amount of time to drive it. It's only $1.25 each way. That's quite a savings in gas....car payment.....auto insurance.


Its the getting to and from the bus stops that takes up so much time.


Speaking of time. What do you do while you sit in that bus waiting for your stop? I'm an avid reader. I always have a book on hand that I'm reading. So I started bringing my book with me. The time really flies by when you're enjoying a good book (especially when you look at the clock and its 3:00 am and you still don't want to put the book down, no matter how much your eyeballs want to fall out of your head).


One minor issue.....


Maybe I'm old fashioned....I dunno....


But a lot of the books that I read and really enjoy are historical romances. They're light hearted....sometimes funny (depending on the author) and, I dunno.....they're everything reality isn't.


So whats my point? Ummm...have you ever seen the covers of those books? They have these half clad women with their breasts bursting from the tops of their gowns....begging to be touched. Or....those Fabio men, wearing leathers, arming a sword...promising to save your life one minute and in the next, to love you like no one else can, with those rippling stomach muscles and piercing eyes..and lips that you can only imagine what they're capable of......

uuuuh ummmm....sooo........what was my point? (is it hot in here?). errrr...Oh ya. Reading such books in public. I'm a grown woman in the 21st century....yet I do not want those strangers on the bus to know what I'm reading. I find it embarrassing. An invasion of my "privacy".(?) And they can soooo tell what I'm reading just by glancing at the cover.


One of my fears is reading a really hot sex scene in public and to glance up and discover the person sitting next to me is reading over my shoulder!!!! I'd die a thousand deaths!


Normally, to get past this weirdness in my head, I bend back the cover of the book so no one sees. I ignore that I might look suspicious. I tell myself in my head that if they can't see the cover, and they don't pay attention to the fact that I've totally bent and f'd up the cover of my book...then I'm safe.


Until the next book.


Crap! The front AND back have a half nude woman on it. AND the book is RED!!!! Red screeeeeaaams.....SEX!!!

shit. shit. shit.


I can't cover the book with a paper bag like we use to in school. That would look even MORE suspicious. No matter how I hold the book, someone will see the half naked woman (and maybe the hot hero). And heaven forbid if I looked like I was enjoying the book toooo much. I mean...what if I smiled cuz something was funny? They'd think I was smiling cuz the story was sexy and I was getting all hot and bothered!


Thats all the weirdo's on the bus need....thinking they're watching some middle class, middle aged woman enjoying a sexy, hot, historical romance novel in public.

But really...I'm only smiling cuz the author wrote something funny. I swear! really I was.


ok....so I totally over think it. But I can't help it.


So I leave the book at home and begin my people watching.....while posting on my blackberry....and wow...the things that I see, hear, and notice? Holy CRAP!!! I don't even miss reading my red hot romance novel when I have real life happening right in front of me.

My First Experience (the first time is never as good as they say)

I live in the glorious San Fernando Valley of Los Angeles County, California. Under circumstances that were not foreseen, I have been....pushed or forced into relying on the good ole public transit form of commuting to work. I'm in my 40's and I think I've ridden the public bus once in my life, back when I was 17.

Which no longer counts.

So...my first day on the Orange Line Bus, going to work, I had NO idea what the hell I was doing. I knew where I had to go, but I had no idea how to go about getting there.

So I got on. Looked around and realized there were no available seats.

Crap.

I stood, holding onto a pole and tried not to fall on my ass each time the bus accelerated. It was probably the worst "pole dance" ever performed, or witnessed in case anyone noticed.

I was in the back of the really long bus that reminds me of a caterpillar and I couldn't hear the conductor or recorded stop announcements. Very stressful as I stood there in my boots and slacks with my purse and backpack (with lunch, coffee and water inside) trying not to land on my ass or in someone else's lap....I'm positive thats not considered a lap dance although the quality would equal my preceding pole dance.

Oh...and there's this cord thing that you're suppose to pull when your stop is next, so the driver knows to stop. Hmm...they don't automatically stop at every stop? ooook.....guess I'll have to learn the route.

Shit.

And start learning how to pull a cord. That I can't reach from my pole (new found bff)

After much anxiety and a very stressful 30 minutes, I got off the bus at the correct stop and found my way to work. A minor mile stone.

But the real fun didn't begin until my ride home.

The final destination going home, is a crappy city called North Hollywood. The city has tried to make it more "trendy" and less scary by calling parts of it NoHo. WTF? Its a disgusting, dirty, run down, ignored part of Los Angeles County and the ONLY thing it has in common with Hollywood is that its NORTH of there. Thats it. The End.

Its a slum. They have shootings there at night.

So....coming home, I have to take the bus to the "NoHo" district and have my husband pick me up and take me home. Home Sweet Home. I hate that the beautiful city I live in brushes shoulders with North Hollywood.

Anyways....on that memorable first ride home, as the bus was pulling into the layover station in the "lets put icing on shit and call it cake" area that we fondly call NoHo....what do I see but a 1/2 dozen cop cars and just as many if not more, cops standing on the platform waiting for us.

US! The bus. The people ON the bus. I glanced around and wondered....Holy CRAP!! Are the cops here to bust a bunch of gang members? How do I get out of here before this shit comes down??!!!

I rose as everyone else on the bus rose. Only I noticed I was the only one in a near panic! Was everyone else just so use to this? Did this kind of thing happen all the time? Doesn't anyone care that a shootout could happen at any moment? We're on a bus full of GANG MEMBERS people!! Helloooooooo!!!!

As I got off the bus I expected the cops to grab all those gang-member-looking-hoodlums I thought I notice in the back of the bus. But no...one cop was coming towards me! Saying something TO ME!! What? I'm not a trouble maker! Don't you see those tattoo wearing, greased hair, bandana headed, scary looking guys? You're going after the wrong person!!!!

Huh?

You want to see my bus pass?!

OOoooooh. Sure...it's right here.

Thank you for not giving me a $200 fine.

Bummer for that guy over there by the cop car. And why is he in handcuffs? It's only for a bus pass for God's sake. Isn't it? We'll give him the benefit of the doubt and just say that he has never paid his $1.25 bus fair for the past year and has more than a dozen violations.

Ya, that sounds much better.

Cuz you can't assume that every scuzzy guy with a tattoo, greasy hair and bandana is a gang member. Unless you're on T.V. of course.