Safe Place on a Bike

In the last few days leading up to the celebration of the birth of Christ better known as Christmas when tons of things are bought, sold and then thrown away I started getting sick in my upper respiratory system. This was the first true illness that I had felt in a while. For about six days I was having trouble sleeping because every time I laid down and closed my eyes the liquid that was building in my body would drop to the back of my lungs parallel to the floor. Then came the coughing and the ensuing unrest for the night time hours. At one point around day four of this nasty I thought I was not going to be able to push it out myself and have to seek the help of my medical coverage. I held out however and by day six it no longer had me in its grips.

For two days that week I rode the Charlotte Area Transit System's not Solution's 40X from the Idlewild extension into toon, I mean town. As you know for years the relationship with my own life has formed around my daily commute. Some years it had been both in and out like it is now and for a few years it was only in due to my afternoon parenting responsibilities. So. My commute, my Stay Alive has really become no problem at all just a simple fact and part of the day that takes no planning or special announcement. It has just become that organic to my existence.

That first morning on the bus I put the Cream Roller in the rack and stepped on board finding a seat close to the bus driver. I scanned her, she seemed competent enough behind the rock star shades. The next thing I noticed was that the one of the red LED gauges on her dash board read: 78F. Wow, it is warm on the bus and comfortable. I pulled out my latest truth telling book and found it easy to read as we drifted on air down the road. Normally this bus floats by me while I am riding in the gutter or on the sidewalk but now I was getting the inside scoop. A lady a few rows back was painting her face with a little kit that made my tool bag look more practical. The sun lit up the inside of the bus as we turned on to the Independence 200. Within 23 minutes of getting on the bus back towards the house I was stepping off it and grabbing my bike in front of the Courthouse on 4th Street. As nice as those two days of relief were I cannot seem to commit to riding it daily even though I have thought about it. It was a cold commute yesterday morning(18F) and it will be toonday(20F) but inside that 40X it will be 78F. I am healthy and have the equipment so I will leave the bus where it is and only pull the bus pass occasionally as an emergency or special treat to myself for being a good boy. Until then the commute goes on even though it sounds as if I am trying to make a case for riding the bus, the warm floating soft seated bus.