It's big, fat and slow. It's never there for you when you need it. It shows up at the most awkward of times. It's very gassy. It's not your ex-significant other. "It" is the Regional Transit System.
Yes, I have big fish to fry this week. I'm sticking it to the driver. I'm sick, hot and claustrophobic. I'm tired of the revered RTS.
I love the environment as much as the next tree-hugging hippie, but if I'm late to one more class because I spent 30 minutes waiting for a bus that never shows, I'll wait for the next bus and throw myself in front of it. It's sad when I would have an estimated wait time of 30 minutes to even kill myself.
OK, that's a morbid thought. But honestly, I'm on the edge, people.
How does that children's song go? The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round. Yeah, right. Those wheels turn until the bus driver leisurely stops to take a nice, 15-minute lunch break. Yes, while you sit on bus filled with more people per cubic inch than Tokyo, Japan, your driver slowly sips his or her coffee and eats his or her sandwich.
I'm all for fair treatment of employees, but why do drivers' lunch breaks have to be on my time? It's bad enough I received third-degree burns waiting in the sun for the bus to arrive. Then I have to nurse my burns while I watch the driver scarf down Jimmy John's.
Maybe the wait time for buses can't be helped. And drivers are human, so I guess they have to eat. I'll give you that, bus drivers. But lately, I've had some unsatisfactory experiences riding the bus.
The other day, a driver wanted to fit as many people on the bus as he possibly could - so he did. I'm all for meeting new people, but when my face is stuck in some stranger's undeodorized armpit and I've felt less crowded in a mosh pit at Warped Tour, the panic button goes off in my mind.
I didn't realize the bus' maximum capacity was 500 people. It made Ladies Night at XS look like the fourth floor of Library West during summer.
I'm a cheery person, but recently my cheerfulness has been beaten to a pulp by the attitude of some of the drivers. Maybe they're interpreting my "hello" and "thank you" as "go jump off a bridge, jerk." I'm met with special hostility when I take the Later Gator.
I understand driving the Later Gator bus must be frustrating. I've taken it, and most of the time I think a pack of wild boars would be better passengers than the usual drunken crowd.
It's a high-stress job. RTS should probably hire zookeepers to drive the buses. I feel for the drivers, I really do.
Bus drivers, know I appreciate you. Obnoxious, wild students should be thrown off the bus. They should be dropped off in the middle of the Ocala National Forest and forced to run from the drug-dealing hippies.
I don't have any suggestions for solving the wait problem. And I really wish I knew what the bus capacity was. But I don't, and I'm basically forced to take this bus. So, here's my plea bus drivers - if you're going to bite my head off for asking where the next stop is or where the bus goes, do it with a smile.
Stephanie Rosenberg is a junior majoring in journalism. Her column appears on Thursdays.
