Driving the Bus

 

 

I used to have a co-worker who, on the odd day, would come in to the classroom and state that he was “riding the hate bus.”  That usually meant a pretty bad day for his students but a decent one for us, as he had a tendency to get sarcastic when provoked.  The greatest danger on a “riding the hate bus day” was the possibility that someone would be embarrassed by laughing so hard that half chewed salad or yogurt would cause a coughing fit.  Some days, however, he’d announce that he was “driving” the hate bus, which meant it was a pretty good idea to leave him alone. 

 

I’ve been in one seat or another on that bus for, oh, a good two months now – maybe more.  It’s not a particularly efficient or fun mode of transportation.  It’s kind of like being stuck in a Twilight Zone episode, only instead of the man in the bad anthropomorphic suit on the wing of the plane, it’s kind of like he’s standing with his hand blocking the little machine that takes bills, and I don’t have exact change.  It has a certain nightmarish quality to it that’s hard to describe.  At the risk of pop culture overload, I told a lot of people that I felt like Gene Hackman’s character in The Birdcage when he said, “I feel like I’m insane.”  Not going insane – looking around and actually wondering if I was.  When you’re consumed with obsessing over what’s wrong, it’s almost impossible to see what is right, even if there is a lot of it. 

 

How did I end up there?  Some of it came from my students this last term, and the overwhelming sense of entitlement they radiated; some I’ll give to what is increasingly amounting to the prolonged Democratic presidential primaries that’s exposed some major problems in this country of which I had either been willfully or blissfully unaware; some I’ll blame on the physiological (hey, it’s biology, that’s still what I do;) some of it’s just my personality (I’m a dweller.)  All of these have contributed to my perception that an increasing number of Americans just don’t give a damn about anything but themselves. 

 

Honesty is a good thing, though, and a first step to healing.  So, like a Band-Aid, it comes off.   I’m tired of riding this bus – I’d rather walk.