From Rage to Redemption--On a Bus

My pet peeve, the one thing that can ruin my usually sunny outlook, is a broken wheelchair lift. Here is my issue. Many of public and private van/bus/shuttle services have incorporated wheelchair lift vans in their fleets. This is great and makes my life much more convenient. Why is it, though, that in my experience, wheelchair lifts work only about 60 percent of the time?

In my life, I've watched numerous buses drive away without me. When I was in Boston, the city buses were notorious for having broken wheelchair lifts. It always played out the same. I'd wait with my friends for twenty or thirty minutes in the FREEZING cold (Boston is COLD!) for a bus because I couldn't take the subway or a cab to our destination (since some subways and most cabs were not accessible). Luckily, my friends were all good sports--or at least at the time they didn't know better--though now that I think about it, it did seem like I had a lot of one-time travelling companions. So we would wait in our little going-out-outfits in sub-zero weather for the bus. Hallelujah, it would come! Then, the driver would look timidly at me, make one or two attempts to work the lift, and shake his head. "Sorry lady, it's not working. I gotta keep my route. There's another bus right behind me, though." Believe me. There was never another bus right behind him.

What could I do? I had to keep my cool. I couldn't let my friends get antsy. "Don't worry guys, we'll just get on the next one. Thanks for being so patient!"

Inevitably, the next bus would come, and it would be the same story. There must be some kind of rage memory that accumulates over time. I was a very polite, understanding 18-year-old. At 20, I would complain loudly to my friends. Now, when I see the ominous shaking of the head; the feeble attempts at working the machine, my blood boils. I think about how I might just park myself in front of that bus. I wonder if I sued, whether that settlement could pay my law school debts. I mean, I have just as much of a right as anyone else to get on those buses. I won't even ask to sit in the front. With all due respect to Rosa Parks, the back would be just fine for me.

And so it happened again. Having decided to take a class at another campus, I now have to take the law school's shuttle across town on Mondays. Each of the school's shuttles looks brand new and is equipped with a shiny, fancy wheelchair lift. When I took the shuttle last week, my ride over was fine. However, on my return trip, the driver gave me that dreaded look. "It doesn't work," he said.

I would have none of it. "WHAT DO YOU MEAN? Well, I don't know what you plan to do, but I need to get home immediately. I need to speak to your supervisor before you move." The memories of all those years of watching buses and cars and trains pull away, leaving me alone on an empty street corner, came rushing forward. This guy would leave me -- OVER MY DEAD BODY!

To my chagrin, he did pull away, and I spent approximately 30 seconds cursing him in every language I knew (ok, two languages). Then, out of nowhere, he pulled back in, in a different bus, but with all of the same passengers. He had made them all switch buses! Man, I felt like a jerk. I apologized for being short with him, went home, forgave the campus transportation services, and pondered whether I had reached a turning point--whether I had misplaced my rage all of these years.

Then, today, I went in for round two. I arrived at the bus stop ten minutes early. The bus driver got out, walked back to the lift, and couldn't open the door. "Great start," I thought. Then he used his keys to try to unlock it--something that I have never seen in my twenty-plus years of observing lift operations. After fifteen minutes of fiddling, he approached me. "Sorry, it doesn't work. I called my supervisor, and he said he'll be here in fifteen minutes to take you over."

Yeah. Right. Fifteen minutes. My guess was it would be more like forty minutes to an hour. So I sat and watched the bus pull away. My eyes teared up. These silly little things that I couldn't control had the power to ruin my day and make me look like a fool. I had needed to get to class early today. It was an important day. And all that driver could say was, "Sorry, it doesn't work"?

"See?" I though to myself. "Your cynicism was well placed. You'll always have to deal with these fools who can't even check if the lifts are working before they put the buses out on their routes. You'll always hold up your peers and make them resent you for wasting their time." To make matters worse, it was also 85 degrees outside and the sun was melting my face as I squinted into the street to watch for my phantom shuttle savior.

Then it happened. Precisely fifteen minutes after the bus left, a small van pulled up. James, the supervisor, introduced himself and apologized for the inconvenience. He quickly tied me into the minivan and peeled out. He would get me to class on time, he promised.

As we swerved in and out of traffic, he chatted with me about his kids, asked me where I was from, and assured me that he would remind all of the drivers to check their lifts every day. We pulled in front of my classroom right on time, and I ran in. To top it off, on my way home, the driver from the previous week--the one who had to switch vans--greeted me at the bus stop and told me that he had prepared the van for me. He had even installed a special seat belt so that I wouldn't get thrown around too much. (These vans are OLD and BOUNCY.)

As it was, everything turned out ok. Ironically, the one time I'd had enough, the one time I was ready to fight, the bus world actually seemed to have redeemed itself. I guess I'll have to save my rage for another day.