Screw you LeBron James........

Screw you in the ear.  Screw you hard in the ear.  Screw you hard in the ear with a metal stake.  It’s your fault I’m not gearing up for another Raptors losing season.  It’s because of you I’m not going to get to see Kevin Durant grow a little bit more towards becoming the most prolific scorer in NBA history.  And it’s all thanks to you, I’m not going to watch for 8 months anticipating what team is going to step up, and send you and your little boy band that is the Miami Heat packing from the playoffs this go around.  You are the primary cause of my dismay on what should be opening week of the 2011-2012 NBA calendar. And your logic rational and reasoning or lack thereof is simply appalling.  Every one of the merry men, from Billy Hunter and Derek Fischer all the way down to Bill Walker and Chris Wilcox should be ashamed.  Truth be told, each and every single athlete in that league continually forgets one very simplistic fact.  Had it not been for a single genetic defect, I’d be kicking most of them off my bus for not having proper fare.  And because of said defect, now everyone owes them something.  The main issue in this lockout, in case you don’t know, is money.  I know, I know……  Shocker.  You see, the division of profit in the landscape of the NBA, up until last year, was 57-43 percent in favour of the players.  The owners, understandably, don’t want to, and cant, live with that.  There is a whole lot of cost associated with owning and running a professional basketball team, and let’s not forget one important truth, THEY ARE THE ONWERS!  Go into any franchise in your area.  If it’s a gas station, ask the clerk if he makes more money than the owner.  If it’s a restaurant, ask the dishwashers, and so on and so forth.  You’ll be out there all damn day, and you won’t find a single business where the employees make more than those that write the checks.  Who the hell do these guys think they are?  So now they have negotiated down to approximately 51-49, still in the players favour.  Take away the ability to dunk that ball, and you’re making ten bucks an hour bussing tables at the local I-HOP, yet now you won’t budge another one point to appease the man that is providing you your bread and butter in the first place?  Are you kidding me?  The next item they are fighting about is a hard cap.  Simply put, the owners want to put an end to fiascos like LeBitch and his boyfriends teaming up to (try to) take over the league.  They want reasonable competition and parity for all.  Wow, how unfathomable that anyone would want, or as a professional, desire, a healthy load of competition.  Toronto and Cleveland, who were the recipients of the raping that was “The Decision”, combined for 41 wins last season.  That would be subpar for one team, but as a two team collective, that’s just wrong.  Two franchises were completely crippled because one team wanted to gain an unfair, and should be pointed out unsuccessful, advantage (thanks again Dirk).  A hard cap would stop all this nonsense in its tracks.  Now the players are arguing that a hard cap would lose them approximately 500 million dollars over the next ten years.  Excuse me?  You’re not losing 500 million dollars boys, its money you should have never had, should never have, and hopefully if this lockout does its job won’t have ever again.  You didn’t lose it my tall athletic self entitlists, because it was never yours.  And wait one second.  If you are losing 500 million dollars and you’re not cocking guns right now, that means that there is still a substantial amount left in the kitty?  How much is enough LeGreed?  How many escalades does your entourage need?  How many mansions?  Yachts? Planes?  You honesty want me to try and understand that you can’t survive off 5 mill per?  Really?  That’s not nearly enough?  I want to throw this laptop through the fucking window right now, im so pissed.  The final main issue of the lockout is that teams don’t want profit sharing.  Ok, stay with me here.  The television rights for the L.A. Lakers were bought (by whomever, I can’t recall, and I’m not looking it up) for 150 million dollars per year.  The television rights for the Portland Trailblazers (whom I would much rather watch than the one man Kobe show any day) are worth 120 million dollars over the next 10 years.  That’s not a typo.  Basically the Lakers make more off their T.V. rights in one season, than the Trailblazers make off their own in a decade.  Yet the players are against profit sharing?  Where are the mothers in all of this?  And no I’m not talking about the player’s babies mothers, lord knows they are everywhere and anywhere, I’m talking about the players mothers.  If you were starving and broke and I had a bit of money in my pocket and I didn’t buy you a sandwich and a pop, my mother would rip me a new asshole for hours.  And that would be over what? 5-6 bucks?  Where’s LeBron’s mom to give him the talk about sharing as well as the haves and have nots?  Oh wait, she’s over at Delonte West’s house right?   She’s catching a little clinically depressed “D”, she doesn’t have time to nurture her man child.  Although if she did that in the first place maybe he would actually have a little bit of class, possibly even dignity.  But you know what? I doubt it.  The players are going to try and take and take and take, and the owners just can’t keep up.  This isn’t the NFL, where every owner is a multi-katrillionaire, and could buy and sell NBA teams with pocket change.  This isn’t MLB where owners might not be as rich, but are extremely deep in “old” money.   This is the NBA where sometimes two and three groups of people have to come together and sacrifice everything they have to buy a franchise.  And what for?  So a bunch of untrained, uneducated classless shmucks can want and want and want every last dime that is out there for the taking?  Hey LeBron, remember when you were about 9 or 10, you know probably the last time you actually gave a shit about the game I love.  Remember when you used to go down to the park and play ball in the summertime?   And sometimes some community group would put a tent up, and maybe sell pop or hot dogs once in a while?  They still do that till this day you know, you should head back there every so often.  Try and remember why you play this game in the first place.  Oh, and hey, if you do actually do that, and there happens to be a tent in the park, selling whatever they are selling, can you do me a favour, go around the side of it, pull out one of those long metal stakes that’s holding the tent down, and screw yourself long and hard in the ear, you greedy miserable heartless puke of a prick. 

Mary Browns vs. KFC

So yesterday I had Mary Browns for lunch.  And not surprising, it was amazing.   But I couldn’t help but to think back to when KFC was the one and only destination when it came to getting some fried chicken.  Back then Mary Browns was all you could get when you were miles out of the city, in some rural township that the Colonel would never venture to.  Mary’s knew her role, and made a solid product, her gravy was if not as good, very, very close.  Her fries were just as good, and for fun, she had Taters.  Now I’m on the fence with taters, and that would understandably cause a little bit of a stir.  Yeah, they are seasoned and spiced like nobody’s business, but lately I’ve been staying away from them, primarily because no matter what they do, they just don’t come out crunchy.  Some people like overtly heavy girls, some people like snug jeans, me, I like my fries well done.  I’ve asked for the taters well done, but they just don’t get crunchy.  So I stick with the fries.  All that aside, lunch was great, and I realized something, I can’t honestly recall the last time that I had a decent experience at KFC.  And it got me wondering, how come?
Well, after a little bit of exhaustive thinking, because I just have spare time like that, I have come up with four primary reasons why the old Colonel fell off, and what exactly KFC did wrong to lose the firm grip it had on the land of deep fried chicken.  First off, the health kick that was the late 90’s set off a chain reaction that would eventually be the beginning of the end.  Now we all know when we walk in that door, that we aren’t getting anything less than 1400 calories regardless of what we order, and personally, as a man, I don’t particularly care about that. But as an attack on our mindset, Kentucky Fried Chicken underwent a name change. It would no longer be known as such, from now and forever on, it was to be called KFC.  The thinking behind it was, “if we take the fried out of our name, people will think it’s a healthy alternative to other options”.  Basically, they said, these people are stupid sheep, and we are gonna pull the wool over their eyes.  We are going to become the healthy choice without becoming the healthy choice, and everyone is going to fall for our little plan because we are smart and they are dumb.  Subconsciously we knew what was going on, and our perception of them forever changed, because we know our mothers didn’t raise fools, and regardless of how much we love something, we hate being played for the idiot even more.  We knew that that shit was fried in grease (oops, oil) which was fundamentally the main reason we went in there, health be damned, it tasted good.  Wait, it tasted great. And we loved it.

Second reason, they used to have this bomb little mixed vegetable salad, you know the one, with the corn, and the carrots, and the vinaigrette. As carnivores, substantially, we don’t care for salad, but as intelligent people, we understand, when dinning on a bucket of deep fried bird, and fries, we do require some assistance in digesting and expelling said delicacies. That salad was the only choice when in need of a digestive aid, and they stopped making it. What am I gonna eat? Potato salad? Like I’m at Aunt Kelly’s picnic? Or macaroni salad? There’s only one macaroni salad, and it is called Kraft dinner, and if you say or think otherwise, I will have to fight you.  That vegetable salad was more than a tolerable salad, it was actually tasty as hell, even if it was mainly sugar glazed cold vegetable’s, I liked it, and some nights I wake up in cold sweats missing it, not unlike a former heroin addict, even 10 years later, wakes up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, longing for some cooked up Black Tar.    
Third, and possibly the most important reason. When, where, why, and how the fuck did extra crispy tasty chicken fall out of existence? If there’s one thing that I myself personally would love more than a big breasted, thick, bad Asian chick that wears garter belts, thigh high pantyhose and throwback Jordan 6’s to bed, it would be a bucket of deep fried, 11 herbs and spiced, death in a meal, chicken skin.  And extra crispy tasty chicken was as close to that as any proprietor was legally allowed to serve us.  It’s the equivalent to a martini in a bar. By law, you’re only allowed a maximum of two shots per drink legally, and the only exception to that rule is by ordering a three ounce martini.  A way around a system that is set up to deprive us of what we want. A martini, and extra crispy tasty chicken, beats the system, and allows us, the working man or woman, to determine what level of intoxication we can handle, in a single serving, be it through alcohol, or “Itis”, it doesn’t matter, it’s our call.  Extra crispy tasty chicken was the single greatest idea ever conceived, and discontinuing it could be the worst decision made since Judas sold out Christ. Just a flat out dumb move, with poor planning, and even poorer execution.  

Finally, and most recently, the double down.  A blatant attempt to what? Steal customers from a completely different target audience? Look, if I want a sandwich, I’m going to Harvey’s, or Burger King. Plain and simple. Although I do applaud the attempt, because that thing does look tempting, and it’s no secret, I love a heart stopper of a meal, but I don’t appreciate back dooring.  That’s not cool. What if Addidas starting selling Jordan Suits?  What if the raptors started playing baseball? (actually since they aren’t very good at basketball, that wouldn’t be the worst idea ever). What if jeep started making smart cars? Is that the type of world we live in? Where there are no principals? No morals? No one sticks to their guns?  Respects what got them to the dance?  Anyone can just do anything they feel like, when they feel like, with little to no passion for the rules of war?  That double down could have been the kick off to a world of sheer anarchy, where all boundaries and limits are out the window, if not for one saving grace, the simple fact being that not everyone has time to take a shower after eating their lunch, which is exactly what the double down demands of you. Lucky us for being the busy people that we are. The double down could have made this world a very, very bad place to be to be a part of.
No, from now one we go to good old reliable Mary Browns, who has found its way into more urban areas, who’s chicken is always thick skinned, and usually cooked fresh to order and although they don’t have any decent salads themselves, that’s not a primary concern of ours, their gravy is just as good, if not a little better and the fries have become much, much tastier than the Colonel's'.  The final nail in the coffin of the Kentucky boys, whom I can’t even bring myself to name one more time, though, would be, if Mary could only get those Taters crunchy.

I Hate Red Lights...............

But hey, at least you get a chance to read your text messages.  That’s about the only good that comes from a red light.  You get anywhere from 30 seconds, to a minute and a half to find that c.d., dig out your wallet, in my case tweet, or do whatever it is you shouldn’t be doing while operating a motor vehicle, thanks to the newly formed ‘driving while distracted” law.  I personally despise red lights, and I’m sure you do too, not because you and I share the same likes and dislikes, because we don’t, but mainly because they are simply exasperative.  I’m off today, so I’m going to delve into what exactly it is about red lights that boils blood, aggravates, and has the ability, in that 30 seconds to a minute and a half, to throw off ones entire day.
RED LIGHTS-FIGUREATIVLY
First and foremost, above their ability to chafe, red lights are simply put, the most fascist of all the laws embedded in the entire Highway and Traffic act.  Even more so than a stop sign, where there is some assemblance of common sense, rationale, and logic.  When you approach a stop sign, you can quickly interpret the scenario, whether there are other vehicles present, kids on bikes, where am I going.  You take in a lot of information in a short period of time, and while you always have to come to a complete stop, how long you sit there is strictly environmental, and you’re given the power of deciding that, as long as it exceeds the legal limit of 3 seconds.  And anyone worth their weight in bat piss can not only handle this, but does handle this, on such an extraordinarily regular basis, that you don’t even recognize the amount of information you’re cycling through.  Not red lights though.  That’s societies way of saying, “hey ass hat, no one trusts you.  You sit there shut up, and wait.  We will let you know when it’s safe to proceed.  And if you have a problem with that, the incredibly understanding cop hiding behind that light post will be more than happy to use a couple of his resources to remind you that you don’t have a say in this matter, nor are you even allowed to think, we will do that for you, because let’s be honest, you’re an idiot, and will more than probably screw this up.”  Anyone who has gotten one of those tickets knows that that decision wasn’t a cheap one to make, and your insurance company probably wasn’t very sympathetic either.  It’s a collaboration of all the groups in your world that can screw you, being given the opportunity to screw you, for a violation of the traffic act that is the equivalent to the “though shalt not covet they neighbors wife” commandment.  And all because you were running a little late for work.  The same work that allows you the funds to pay all these groups of people, who could at least use a little Vaseline once in a while, when they are having at you.  Wow, after writing that out, it really is one of those nasty vicious cycles isn’t it?
RED LIGHTS-METAPHORICALLY
Above their totalitarian appeal, and their annoyances, red lights also wreak havoc on your subconscious, mainly through under lying neuro-associations.  If you’re not sure exactly how a neuro-association works, it’s quite simple really.  When you’re over exposed to anything, especially negative, your inner brain eventually will both relate, and direct you to a feeling, emotion or outcome, that has been proven to be true through repetition.  For example, I have a strong nuero-association to wooden spoons.  When I was younger, that was my mother’s weapon of choice when it came to disciplinary action.  And believe me, it came to disciplinary action very frequently.  To this day I don’t use them, I only buy plastic or metal spoons, and just holding a wooden spoon pretty much makes my ass numb, and I refrain from using profanity, throwing the cat around by the tail, or drinking all the pop in the fridge.  The same thing happens when you come up to a red light.  Ever since you were a child, you were told, don’t cross the street on a red light.  Red light means stop, don’t move.  It’s dangerous. If I find out you crossed the street on a red light, its wooden spoon time.  And whether or not you actively remember that, your inner brain does, and relates the same sense of negativity to your very being when stuck at a red light.  Think about it for a second, how could a red light, consciously cause you THAT much stress.  It was a symbol of action and response.  The action being, the breaking of not only a government law, but the highest order of all laws, the law of “because your mother said so”. (Wow, how Freud…)  And the result being for the first, possibly a citation or fine, and for the latter, whatever your household’s equivalent to the wooden spoon was in my house.  Next is the colour red in itself.  While the perception of colour is subjective, some colours have universal deep seeded meanings.  Colors in the red area of the color spectrum are known as warm colors and include red, orange and yellow. These warm colors evoke emotions ranging from feelings of warmth and comfort to feelings of anger and hostility.  A strong bright red evokes such powerful emotion, that it really is seldom used in day to day offerings, but when it is, think about how impactful it is.  You know that guy down the street that has that amazing red sports car?  If it was white, or black, it would be ok, but since its red, you revert to adjectives such as, “amazing”.  It almost even seems faster than its equivalent in a blue or green.  Or how about a sunset?  A nice sunset alone is enjoyable, but what about when the weather and sun mix accordingly to give it that red hue.   Absolutely breathtaking.  A red light operates the same way.  It takes a mild inconvenience, being held up for a tiny bit of time, in addition to the colour red, totally perpetuating said inconvenience into a much larger scenario than it actually is. 

It’s easy while sitting here writing, far from traffic, to realize how insignificant that small portion of my time actually is.  I know tomorrow when I’m on my way to work and I get stuck at 4 or 5 of them, or tomorrow night while I’m at work, and I have to endure 3 or 4 dozen of them, that my emotions, and anger will get the best of me.  Just as I’m sure, after reading this and understanding that it’s actually a combination of your own narcissism, your lack of respect for authority and your deep rooted affliction of colours that has you upset or stressed out, not the sitting there waiting for the light to change, you will still utter a “Jesus Christ” or a “what the fuck”.  Just relax, its 30 seconds to a minute and a half, even if you have to do it 5 times in one trip, that’s still only 2.5 minutes to 7.5 minutes of your time.  Not a whole lot really, given the fact that there are 1440 minutes in a day.  Besides, don’t you have text messages to read anyway?    

Feel It Coming In The Air

As the leaves start to change colour, the days get shorter, and the nights get colder, about a million and one thoughts tear through my mind at once.  It happens every year at about this time.  Primarily because historically some of the worst events in my life have taken place in the Autumn.  It’s a constant that I’ve both learned to except, and try my best to prepare for on a yearly basis.  There’s really no rhyme nor reason for it, it just seems to work out like that.  Or maybe the same amounts of bad tend to happen, but is amplified by the pre-fore mentioned cold, and slowly diminishing sunlight? Whatever the case, it’s in the air, and as Phil once sang, I can feel it coming.
The textbook definition of nostalgia is as follows.  A wistful desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one's life;  A sentimental yearning for a former place or time, home, homeland or experience;  to languish the return of past circumstances, events and or emotions.

So basically, it’s the past haunting you.  But what triggers it?  It could be a certain smell, a particular temperature or specific climate, like that of a cold rain, or a warm snowfall.  All these are available in abundance in the fall.  But let’s look at what makes this time of year slightly more neurotic than most other seasons.  First and foremost it marks the impending arrival of Winter, which is solemn enough in its own.  You can almost start to feel your back hurting just thinking about the snow.  The thought of the extended time it takes to just drive around the corner, let alone the commute to work certainly doesn’t bring any smiles to any ones face.  And of course there’s Seasonal Affective Disorder, where the lack of exposure to sunlight directly affects ones susceptibility to stress and or illness, and its effect on our circadian rhythms, resulting in anywhere from minor to moderate depression. 

Of course this season also ushers in quite possibly the worst Holiday of the year.  I personally despise Thanksgiving for two basic reasons.  One, it’s nothing more than the celebration of rape and pillage, as our forefathers, who, growing tired of their own home countries governing bodies, policies and practises decided it was not only their desire, but right to infiltrate an already occupied but considered new by old world standards continent, with the understanding that they could create a new society that could be built without the scrutiny and exploitive influence of political bias.  Fast forward a couple hundred years and you can see how well that turned out.  It almost makes you proud to be a White Anglo Saxon Protestant, doesn’t it?  The second reason I despise Thanksgiving is because turkey and pumpkins are the least best tasting of meat and fruit you could possibly plate.  There is quite a discrepancy in the complication factors from point one and point two, but it’s rather hard to argue either one.  Now if you’re in the percentage of thinking, and by that I mean naivety, that accepts Thanksgiving as nothing more than a reason to celebrate with family and friends, and take a day off to eat drink and be merry, such as Christmas and Easter have essentially become, than I applaud you.  This is the Western Hemisphere, and that’s how we roll.  Historical events be damned.
The third season also demands that you make and take time out, to clean out the closet.  Gone are the tank tops, shorts and tee shirts, to be replaced by long pants, sweaters and cumbersome winter jackets.  If the lack of comfort and breathability, as far as clothing goes, isn’t enough to  slow you down and make you grimace, remember this, it’s going to be a few months before you see the beautiful woman walking around in the clothing they must spend a fair amount of time packing up very soon, as well.  No short shorts, no tight tee’s and although you’ll still catch them here and there, those, should be award winning, Lu Lu lemon pants  will become moderately scarce.  Little tattoo’s peeking out above exposed panties over low riding shorts hibernate, and even the smiles that could stop traffic become non- existent,  replaced instead by frowns that scream “I need better weather now, I can’t take this shit”. 

Between the cold, the dark, the mental disorders, extra clothing, lack of smiles on beautiful women, and my own historical lows during this time of year, it’s really no wonder I don’t exactly get amped up come October.  Infact, truth be told, I can only remember one rather exceptional October, and that took place back in 2006.  It will stand as one of the greatest highs of my entire life, something I will both remember and cherish, potentially for the rest of my duration here.  But sadly this will be my 33rd fall, and 1 for 33 doesn’t exactly get you an endorsement deal by any stretch of the imagination.  Remember what the late Roger Hornsby said, when asked what he does when the Summer ends.  “I sit and stare out the window and wait for Spring”.  That’s a pretty good idea I think I may try that.  But I better get started, the leaves are changing colour, the nights are getting colder, and I can definitely feel it coming in the air……….                 

This is what annoys me..........

One of the main requests I receive as a blog topic is for me to discuss things that annoy the hell out of me as a Bus driver.  I’ll be honest, I don’t really like telling folks what I do for a living, because it is quite the topic stealer, and becomes all we talk about for some time.  And as much as I love the spotlight, I’d prefer to spend it talking about something other than work.  People are often asking me questions about situations that they perceive to be rarities, and are absolutely flabbergasted when they find out that these situations aren’t rarities, but more often normal day to day occurrences I have to deal with.  “One time I saw this, or the other day this happened”, and they can’t believe they aren’t shocking me.  You’d have to go to the edge of the earth to find a situation I haven’t seen, if not recently, probably even today.  So, with that said, I’m going to spend this chilly evening compiling a list, highlighting the most agitating things I have to deal with on a regular basis.  So if you have done, or do any of these things, then yes, absolutely, I’m talking about you.  Knock it off, your irritating the dog shit out of me!!
 Strollers on the bus

This is a great place to start.  And for clarity, I’m not talking about each and every stroller, because lets be reasonable here, people with little children have to get places too.  What I’m talking about are these god damn strollers that are the size of fucking Lexus’s.  Let’s look at this for a second,  if the kid is 21 pounds, what the holy Christ do you need a 105 pound contraption to shuffle him around town for? I had a BMX when I was a kid, and it didn’t have tires as big as some of these strollers do.  And these are the people who get on the bus, and stare at people, as if to say, “Well, are you going to move so I can get by?”  If you had a reasonable size stroller, you would be able to maneuver your ass around people.  But no, you brought the friggen chip truck of strollers, and now expect everyone to clear out of your way, because you are being inconvenienced.  I have news for you, you’re the inconvenience, not the other way around.  And why do you have to stand in the narrowest part of the bus, right at the front, beside the driver.  Do you have a logic issue?  Actually, don’t answer that, obviously you do.  Obviously you can’t realize that when you stand there, yapping on your phone, while your son/daughter is sleeping in that log cabin on wheels, no one, NO ONE, can get by.  But who cares right, you’re the most important person in the world.  We should learn to deal with it.    
People on cell phones

I have yet to be privileged enough to hear a conversation that even resembles anything close to being important enough, that the entire bus not only should, but has no other choice, but to listen to loudly and clearly.  Seriously, shut up.  It’s annoying, it’s rude, and chances are, the more you talk, the dumber you both appear and, there for are.   Also, why is it, and I’m not trying to be stereotypical here, that it’s mostly Asian men, or black woman, who insist on talking the absolute loudest on their phones on the bus.  Do you see the irony? The two focus groups that are typically the hardest to understand, unless your trained in either mandarin, or whatever you want to call that island gibberish crap, scream in their phones so loud and so fast, that you pause and wonder if anyone is even on the other end.  And for fun, next time you see this happening, say something to them.  You’ll either get the head nod, one finger up, as if that conversation is almost over, but it’s not.  Or you just started the biggest fight you may ever be in.  Don’t you know, you are interrupting the most important person in the world?
 Know where you are going, before you leave the house  

No, I don’t know where Jacks Steakhouse and oil change is.  Nor do I know where 325 lost Avenue is.  I know where this bus goes, and what bus stops it stops at.  I may know an extra side street or two along the way, but that’s it.  And you know what, I’m not an asshole because of it.  Want to know why?  Cause I’m not the one going there.  You are.  So figuring out where it is and how to get there is something you should have done before you left the house.  Oh but wait, I forgot, you’re the most important person in the world, whoever you bless with your ignorance should stop everything, and use all of their resources to get you where you are going, and please, do it in a timely fashion, right?  Tell you what.  Next time you have somewhere to go, and don’t know where it is, spend 15 less seconds looking at gay porn, and Google it.  See how much time you save for all of us.
Read the signs

96 Wilson Ave to York Mills station.  There’s one question I should NOT be asked with this sign up.  “Do you go to York Mills station?”  60 Steeles West to Finch Station.  Don’t do it…… don’t ask me what station I go to.  I’m not even going to get into logic here, like for example, how would said Wilson bus get to York Mills without at some point passing Bathurst, or how our beloved Steeles bus would get to Finch station from Steeles, without the aid of ever useful Yonge Street, that’s already too much thinking for some, so I won’t hold you accountable for that.  But blatant questions that you clearly know the answer to, or could know the answer to, if you took a second to have a look at the sign, are almost as annoying as hemorrhoids.  Why do we even have signs?  They aren’t cheap you know.  And they aren’t there for me.  They are there for you.  How about the 6 signs at Wilson station that say, West bound buses upstairs, East bound buses downstairs?  Even if you are assed out lost, you’ve been given a starting point.  There is no reason in hell I should have to tell you to go upstairs or downstairs at that station.  If I do, you shouldn’t really even be allowed to leave the house, let alone get on a bus. 
Let the people on the bus first

If you’ve exhausted all the possibilities, studied and took in all the information you could, yet still have a question, then I’ll entertain it, but do me, and the rest of the people at the bus stop a favour.  Get on last.  Especially in the cold, or rain, or what have you.  The dozen people behind you shouldn’t have to brave the elements, while you stand there blocking the door, going “ahhh, do you ahhh, go to ahhh, where was it again, ahhhhh”.  Stand to the side, gather your thoughts, and when everyone is on, then you get on.  But spit it out man, come on.  You’re on your way there, you shouldn’t be stuttering, and stumbling through where it is your going.  I know, I know, most important person in the world.  We can wait.   Idiot.