A daily bus ride

 

I read yesterday that a lot of the old buses servicing the Bulgarian public transport were being decommissioned. A warm wave of memories, a sad nostalgic note crept in the room. 

As a kid, it was quite uncommon to get a ride to school from your dad, especially in the winter, due to a multitude of reasons, one the more prominent ones being that his car was usually a good ten years older than yourself, therefore starting it at 06:00 AM at -15 degrees was an utopia for the most part.

My dad, a typical Bulgarian man, expert in fixing everything from the kitchen sink to a NASA space shuttle wrapped up his sleeves and prepared the usual morning maintenance routine: Hot water, motor oil and me and my mom as raw physical power to push when everything else inevitably failed. 

Now I do have to say that there was an educational aspect to it, as most of my swear word vocabulary was attained namely in those freezing mornings when my dad used to bless his car, his job, his boss, the government and everything else in between.

At the end of it, I took my backpack which weighed two times my own bodyweight at best and made my way towards the bus stop. My personal warden, aka mom made sure I actually got on the bus and went to school, as she was worried that the local video game club might tempt me to skip my ride to a brighter future.

Once in, I just melted into the lovely fusion of aromas, ranging from old folks who hadn't showered since their wedding day, the occasional silent fart which brought tears of joy and the neighborhood dog Kiro, who use to take a ride through the whole city just to dry up a bit. I was always amazed at how he knew when to get off, he never missed a stop, unlike me when I fell asleep and woke up in a place I'd only seen on the news broadcast at the time. 

I didn't particularly enjoy my rides in the bus, as there was never a place to sit, there was seldom more than 2 centimetres of personal space per person, and the fact that I was as high as the next person's ass only exacerbated the issue, putting me directly in the line of potential hostile fire. It's never a good sign if you feel a sudden warmth in the bus guys, especially when you're vertically challenged and all the heavy gas drops down towards the floor. 

The drivers were always gentlemen of the utmost manner as well, graciously leaving the doors open so a few more people can get in. The more the merrier doesn't really apply when there's somebody literally resting his grocery bag on your head, like "Hello sir, there's a small person down here you know" Driving with open doors at -15 was very funny when you saw it from the outside, but not that much when you were the one actually hanging from the doorstep, hoping that he won't step on the brakes too hard. 

We used to play hide and seek with the ticket lady all the time, until one day she ambushed us from the back door and me and my buddies got kicked out at a bus stop that was an hour's drive away from our neighborhood. With no money left, as we had diligently spent everything on juices and sweets, relying on our superior skills of cheating the system and revolutionizing the means of public transport, we took a nice long evening walk. Fresh air at its finest they say.

By the time I got home, my mom was patiently smoking a cigarette and staring at me in a manner which somehow hinted to me that I wasn't gonna get a Nobel prize for my geographical adventure. She actually took a deep breath in before she started shouting. My cat was so deeply concerned with my mom's ethical discipline towards me that he got up from the sofa  and left the room. Lucky guy. So after a pleasant 30 or so minutes of  mom painting my bright future as a newspaper boy, we sat down for dinner. Dad came back from work and sat on the table. His car was broken.

Well, Kiro the dog awaits tomorrow again.

Yours truly,

S