What Looks Like an Awfully Difficult Job

“Oh, to be a bus driver,” the woman next to me said.
Immediately I agreed. She and I had been watching as the complaints kept adding up on a rainy day on the M5 bus. We had seen the old ladies complaining about too much air conditioning and heard the travelers as they berated the driver about how slowly the traffic was moving. Then there was the requisite crazy guy offering tips on how to navigate the congestion.
For most of it, many blocks of the drama, we had not spoken to one another. But once my neighbor broke the silence, I instantly joined in. I said that being a bus driver certainly looked like a job I did not want. Everyone who complains thinks that they are the first too notice whether it’s too cold or whether there are too many cars on the road. New Yorkers are an insistent bunch, which can be a charming affectation or evidence of self-regard and decent character. But on this wet morning, they (we?) were just a pain in the ass.
It’s funny because a few years ago I made the mental leap from the subway to the bus. I began to wonder why I was in such a hurry. I started to like seeing the long journeys from one part of the city to another, especially on my beloved M5, which delivers me almost to my apartment building’s front door. The subway, I started to think, has become more worrisome in post-9/11 New York. The bus was worth the extra time.
Not on days like this, though. Today I was thinking the speed of the subway would be a plus. Less traffic and far less whining from the crowd. The bus driver, God bless her, took it all in stride. She responded well to the streaming critiques. If she had gone mad and began assaulting passengers, she would have been wrong, but I for one would not have eagerly testified against her. Difficult job, indeed.