Dude:
When I saw the stuffed husky puppy doll over the dreamcatcher on your fully-carpeted bus, I knew two things:
1. “This guy,” I said, “knows how to deal with bad vibes.”
The dreamcatcher filters the smaller stuff, the puppy handles what remains. That is a two-pronged attack on fear, doubt, and negativity.
2. I am in the presence of a vehicle-decorating mastermind.
And it makes me want to buy a van, or something big, just so you can decorate it.
But what I didn’t know was that you were also a fan of the cinema. I wouldn’t have chosen to see No Reservations or Codename: The Cleaner — much less in the same sitting! — but I was impressed by the pairing. No Reservations features food that I am slightly interested in eating, and The Cleaner makes me not want to eat at all.
And both films had at least one scene which was basically just to make fun of chinese people. Which is odd, given that we are all riding on a chinatown bus. It made me understand that no commercial film, no matter how successful, is really above making fun of an ethnicity. I feel like you were highlighting just how widespread this particular prejudice is, using an interesting cross-section of genre, and I thank you for it.
Seriously, though, if you hadn’t had that dreamcatcher, I think these movies might have been really unpleasant. I just feel like there was a lot of negative energy invested in both of them.
Question: some of the overhead bins were locked for this trip: did you have power crystals in them? Because I wear one around my neck, and it was glowing, and it’s only supposed to glow around other power crystals. If not, definitely think about it.
Woah! I’m utterly off topic. Let me have a sip of coffee here, and I’ll be right back.
Anyway, what I really wanted to talk about was something you said to me — well, I guess you were really talking to the passengers. You reminded everybody to pick up their trash, and then you added, “I’m nice to you, be nice to me.”
And that’s kind of where I started to feel like maybe you had a little too much invested too much in us as passengers. Niceness isn’t really what I’m looking for in a busdriver. Frankly, it makes me a little bit nervous.
Let me tell you a little story about a friend of mine, who was a bus driver in college. He once saw a guy driving in the kind of swervy way that you associate with a drunk driver, so he just took the bus, and blocked the guy’s car with it.
The guy yelled at him, and that’s when he knew that the driver was definitely drunk, because he was slurring his speach, and my friend just said, “No. You’re drunk. Get off the road.” And the guy turned around.
The best part of this is that the guy was so angry, he called the cops, who breathalyzed him and everything worked out.
OK, I made that part up. That didn’t happen. What really happened was that the guy called the bus company to complain, but my friend got a pat on the back from his supervisor.
Where am I going with this? Oh, right. I just never get to tell that story, so I took the opportunity because I figure you bus driver guys have those kinds of experiences. No wait, I think I was going to talk about niceness as opposed to . . . hang on . . .
I just think you should have to be nice to people. I think they need to respect you. You have a dreamcatcher, a stuffed husky puppy, and a slew of DVDs that tell us a lot about our society. We — the passengers — do not.
Anyway, I burnt a CD for the next trip I see you on, and I’d really like your opinion on what kind of vehicle I should buy. It has to be big for the atmosphere, but small enough to park in New York or Boston or wherever.
–Evan
