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I have been regularly riding the Alexandria Dash transit buses for almost ten years now, and in general have found them to be clean and reliable (though their schedule is a bit thin at certain times of the day). I know that lots of people don't like the idea of riding public buses, but I haven't encountered any of the problems they point to: drunks, trouble-making kids, mentally-disturbed individuals, etc. The only real complaint I have is that a couple of their drivers are unnecessarily agressive in the way they drive their buses.
Yesterday morning gave me a chance to reflect on other people's concerns. I arrived at my bus stop at my usual time, a couple of minutes before 6am. Already waiting there was a man (I'd guess he's in his mid- to late twenties) that I've seen on a few other mornings over the past couple of weeks. He wears jeans and a military style coat and carries a fairly heavy backpack. He doesn't say anything, and pays for his bus fare with loose change he has to dig from deep in his pocket. Yesterday was different, though, in that he reaching into his back back and pulled out a plastic bag with a can in it, popped the can open and began to drink. He finished this rather large can (probably 24 oz) fairly quickly, since the bus was due any minute and slid the empty can into the trash back someone has tied to the post holding the bus stop sign.
I was fairly certain that he was drinking some sort of malt liquor, and was more than a little surprised to see him do so at that early hour. Nothing about his behavior was otherwise any different than any other morning, but somehow my impression of his is now completely different. I can't help wonder about someone who appears to be drinking a beer at 6:00 in the morning while waiting for a public bus.
This morning, my curiosity got the better of me, and I looked at the can he left behind yesterday. It was indeed a malt liquor, 'Hurricane' brand, from Anheuser-Busch...
Yesterday morning gave me a chance to reflect on other people's concerns. I arrived at my bus stop at my usual time, a couple of minutes before 6am. Already waiting there was a man (I'd guess he's in his mid- to late twenties) that I've seen on a few other mornings over the past couple of weeks. He wears jeans and a military style coat and carries a fairly heavy backpack. He doesn't say anything, and pays for his bus fare with loose change he has to dig from deep in his pocket. Yesterday was different, though, in that he reaching into his back back and pulled out a plastic bag with a can in it, popped the can open and began to drink. He finished this rather large can (probably 24 oz) fairly quickly, since the bus was due any minute and slid the empty can into the trash back someone has tied to the post holding the bus stop sign.
I was fairly certain that he was drinking some sort of malt liquor, and was more than a little surprised to see him do so at that early hour. Nothing about his behavior was otherwise any different than any other morning, but somehow my impression of his is now completely different. I can't help wonder about someone who appears to be drinking a beer at 6:00 in the morning while waiting for a public bus.
This morning, my curiosity got the better of me, and I looked at the can he left behind yesterday. It was indeed a malt liquor, 'Hurricane' brand, from Anheuser-Busch...
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