Author Archive: Christopher Waldrop

Sometimes when I’m waiting at a bus stop I get the feeling the drivers speeding by are looking down on me. Metaphorically, I mean. I think they see me and think, “Hah, look at that schmuck. He has to stand in the heat and wait for a bus while I’m moving along comfortably in my 1978 Gremlin with its 8-track deck and AC that I’m gonna get fixed someday.” It’s a lousy attitude because I’m pretty sure most drivers don’t even notice me, and anyway once the bus arrives I step up into the higher seats in the back. Who’s looking down on whom now, suckers? Anyway, what if I could really look down?

The Chinese government has been experimenting with a bus that goes above and beyond…traffic. It’s not a double-decker bus but a bus that’s designed to straddle the lanes, passing above cars rather than simply passing them, and it’s environmentally friendly because it’s powered by its own awesomeness as you can see in this picture.

Source: Shanghaiist

Part of that may not be true but it is a cool idea for making bus routes more efficient, and making public transportation cool. In fact that may be its literal downfall. I could see this bus being so popular it would collapse under the weight of too many riders. On the bright side if it collapsed on a car below it might be the final excuse that guy in his 1978 Gremlin needs to get his air conditioning fixed.

The sea was angry that night, my friends.

A chartered bus had taken us from Grantham, England, all the way down to the western edge of Wales to the ferry that would take us to Ireland. We’d set out in the afternoon so we arrived at the ferry dock at around ten p.m. It had been raining all day and the wind had picked up. High waves rocked the ferry. As soon as we got onboard we all headed to the lounge for drinks. One of our adult chaperones sat down with his pint of Guinness then grabbed a trash bin and threw up in it. He walked out.

The ferry boat continued rocking and others followed him. There were open cabins with bunk beds and I guess they thought lying down would help.

By the time the ferry was well under way there were only three of us left in the lounge: me, Drew, and Eric Ian. Drew, Eric, and I had all had a few drinks by that time. I was laughing about everyone else being seasick because I’m a terrible person. Then I announced I wanted to explore the ship and Drew and Eric came along with me. We found the cabins and the duty free shop, which wasn’t open, and there didn’t seem to be much else so we decided to check the deck. The ferry was still heaving up and down, the wind was blowing, and the deck was slick with rain or seawater so we held tight to the railing and walked all around the deck. The blackness of sea and sky blended together with only the occasional whitecap lit by the ship to show us where the water was. Waves lapped up onto the deck. I heard a rushing sound and looked to my right. A huge wave had hit the side of the ship and was now sliding along the deck toward us. Drew and I tripped over the bulkhead getting back inside. We turned around to see Eric, still holding the railing, look to his right just in time to get splashed in the face and nearly swept away.

Drew and I lay on the floor laughing because we were terrible people.

I remembered this while listening to a Fresh Air interview with neuroscientist Dean Burnett, author of Idiot Brain, explaining why people get seasick.

So what’s happening there is the brain’s getting mixed messages. It’s getting signals from the muscles and the eyes saying we are still and signals from the balance sensors saying we’re in motion. Both of these cannot be correct. There’s a sensory mismatch there. And in evolutionary terms, the only thing that can cause a sensory mismatch like that is a neurotoxin or poison. So the brain thinks, essentially, it’s been being poisoned. When it’s been poisoned, the first thing it does is get rid of the poison, aka throwing up.

Do you ever get seasick? I seem to be one of those lucky few who’s never had a problem with motion sickness. Well, I used to think it was luck. Now I think my brain is even more of an idiot than most and just ignores the mixed signals. Maybe it has something to do with being a terrible person.

The one predictable thing about Nashville weather is that it’s unpredictable. Maybe that’s why I rarely bother to check the weather report even though this sometimes means getting caught in the rain without an umbrella, although there are worse things to be caught without, like my bus pass or my pants, and then there was the time I’d ridden the bus halfway home before I remembered I drove to work that day, but that’s another story.

And then there was the January when snow was in the forecast but I can’t tell you how many times the weather reports have called to snow only to have a few scattered flurries, or to have the temperature shoot up to around ninety degrees. Celsius. That’s the South for you. It had started snowing when I set out for the bus but I was bundled up warmly and it didn’t look like it was going to amount to anything. Then again it never looks like it’s going to amount to anything. It’s only when snow starts blowing across the street that it looks like we’re in for nasty weather.

Oh yeah, it was blowing across the street when I set out for the bus, but I kept going. I’m an optimist.

I got to the bus stop but there was no bus and according to the schedule it wouldn’t be along for a bit, and even though bus schedules are about as trustworthy as weather reports I set out for the next bus stop a block away. Sometimes I get antsy just standing around at bus stops so I’ll walk down to the next bus stop—in the opposite direction of the way home, but I figure if the bus is coming toward me then I’m really getting closer to it, if that makes any sense. I’ve walked a mile or more, passing by at least half a dozen bus stops before I pick one and stop, afraid the bus will be just around the corner and I’ll be caught between stops.

The snow was really coming down and was getting thick on the streets. Cars were creeping by. Still I kept trudging on. I came to a hill where I could see a long distance. There was no sign of the bus. There was even less sign of traffic even moving. I decided to stop and wait. And I waited. More than an hour had passed since I’d set out. I hadn’t seen a single bus in either direction. Wherever they were they apparently weren’t going anywhere.

I didn’t get upset. Hey, I’m an optimist. I just happened to be an extremely cold and damp optimist.

That’s when my wife called.

“Why don’t you come and meet me where I work? You’re not far from your office, are you?”

Why, no, of course not! I wasn’t going to admit that I’d wandered hither and yon, or at least hither, or maybe yon—I’m not sure which is distance—from the bus stop closest to my office. I turned around and started trudging back the way I’d came. And amazingly I moved pretty quickly. It didn’t take me that long at all to get to where she worked. This was at least partly due to the slow-moving traffic which meant I didn’t have any trouble getting across intersections. And I think I was motivated by a desire to get out of the cold.

The heat in the middle of summer is brutal but it has one major advantage. It doesn’t stop, or even slow, the traffic.