Yolanda and a Retrospective Look at the Gender Game

For those of you who are as intimately familiar with the AC Transit system as this author (which I expect few of you are, but kudos if I'm wrong; we might have a job for you here at Bus Hoppers), you may be aware that currently we in the fan community are experiencing "service affected by labor unrest." Oh my. Well, no surprise really- apologies abound, but c'mon Oaktown, how predictable can you get?

So I thought I would brighten these dark, dark days with a staycation down memory lane, of course remembering our first and favorite trip on the 1.

Some might call this the godfather of all bus hopper adventures, and the first time we heard this vocation calling our names. From this point forward, movies lost their draw (I mean, why would I pay $13 to watch uncomfortable love unfold in 3-D *cough Avatar cough* when I could pay $0.00 to watch it shake up at a spectacular pace on the Northbound 1R? Oh, but that's an entirely different tale...)

This adventure could have a host of other titles, such as "How we survived the battle of the dueling wheelchairs" or "what kind of vegetable looks gray and smells like garbage?" or perhaps, "The bus ride that answers the question,'Huh?'", but for the time being, let's stick with what we have.

We embarked on that particular dusky evening, brains a little fuzzy from a previous adventure. This was our first cooperative venture on the 1, so of course we were a little giddy. We sat in the 'tea-cup' seats and strapped in for the ride. Our spins were short-lived however, as a wheelchair-bound passenger boarded; we respectfully headed toward the [boring] seats in the back, taking more of an observational than participatory role in the events of that night. Thank god.

Minutes later a second, seemingly wheelchair-bound passenger boarded. This man was, however, very different. You're familiar with Lil'Wayne, no? and giants also? This was two of those in one person. Whoa. (yes, I did just google "lil'wayne as a giant in a wheelchair" to see if I could add a photo clip. No dice. weird). Blingin' hard, chalice in hand, this young gent was full-on abusing the AC Transit ramp system. He had one of those wheelchairs where you just use your finger to move the whole chair. Total pimp status. Basically, two thirds of the bus was taken up by wheel-chairs, space was limited. We all had to get a little closer...you know what that means...

After the novelty of the gangsta-chair had worn off, we searched for other one-act bus plays that were happening. On the other side of us was Yolanda (names have [not actually] been changed to protect the privacy of this individual. In fact, this is the ONLY clue we have as to his/her gender. It's really still up in the air). Yolanda was enjoying a late dinner on the bus. By dinner, I mean some sort of gray-green substance that smelled just like it looked- perhaps cooked vomit filled with gray peas? Yolanda, however, seemed quite pleased with her little dinn dinn and attempted to share/trade it with EVERY passenger on the bus. Two college students obliged by trading her some other snack items for her delectables, after that, Yolanda et al. were friends for lyfe.

Our bus adventures thus ended, but the memories of that dueling-wheelchair-gray-green-vomit-fried-garbage-food have FOREVER been burned into my senses. I want to thank the entire cast of characters on board that day for inspiring what has thus followed, and inspiring me to always work the system, shit, that's how we get it done.