What’s it gonna be today?

“Did you see that?” cried my friend Art Dana (“DAY-nuh”), deceased about a year ago, after a driver swept across my bow in front of the so-called “Jewel-in-the-Crown.”
“Ever get the feeling all we were doing was cutting slack for complete idiots?” he’d say.
“And bumbling grannies and NASCAR wannabees,” I’d respond.
“Oh Dora, look. A bus, a bus; PULL OUT! PULL OUT! Them things can stop on a dime.“
(Nine tons of hurtling steel.)
Art, like me, was a retired bus-driver for Regional Transit Service (“RTS”), the supplier of transit-bus service in the Rochester area.
The “Jewel-in-the-Crown” is the gigantic Pittsford-Plaza Wegmans supermarket, a store so big ya need a powered cart.
They even have valet service for their giant parking-lot.
“Do you see how much slop I have in front of me?” I’d ask.
“That’s the old bus-driver in me. Allow enough room to stop without tossing my passengers outta the seats — and the four-wheelers can cut me off without drama on my part.”
Every time I venture out onto the highway, I get madness.
Yesterday (Friday, August 12, 2011) it was a lady with a handicap-tag honking her horn at me, incensed I didn’t run a yellow turn-arrow, which would have allowed her to run the following red turn-arrow.
She gave me the one-finger salute as she roared by.
The other day we had to make an early medical appointment in Rochester.
This meant NASCAR rush-hour.
My follower blasted past as I merged onto Interstate-390, then nearly sideswiped another car trying to pass him on the right.
A gigantic swerve ensued, but they managed to avoid each other.
“NASCAR rush-hour,” I said. “Gotta be first to the free donuts.”
Having been a bus-driver made me what I am: hyper careful.
“You coulda pulled in front of that guy,” my brother would exclaim.
“Old bus-driving rule,” I’d say. “Don’t scare the four-wheelers. They might do something utterly stupid, and thereby involve you in an accident. I can wait 10 seconds.”
The other day I was returning another Transit retiree from a brunch gig.
“Didja see how I looked both ways before I started into the intersection?”
“‘Poppy, the light is green!’” he said, reprising a grandson.
“‘Didja see that clown running the light? He woulda T-boned ya.’”
I have a friend in central Pennsylvania who told me he starts into an intersection if an approaching car has its turn-signal on.
“Not this kid!” I said. “I almost got creamed doing that once.”
Exiting the Jewish Community Center in Rochester with a Transit bus, I started into the street because an approaching car had his turn-signal on.
He had it on by mistake.
You can bet that from then on I had the awful temerity and unmitigated gall and horrific audacity to wait until the signaled car started to actually make his turn, much to the animated chagrin of my honking followers.
So what’s it gonna be this time?
Seems every time I enter the road, utter madness occurs at least once.
I nearly got run off the road once, by a girl reading her morning newspaper while yammering on her cellphone and applying eye-shadow. She was weaving a black Volkswagen Jetta all over the road.
Another time I managed to avoid T-boning another cellphone user who never saw me — a gigantic screeching swerve.
She was too busy telling her mother her husband was a bum.
I got a fleeting unacknowledging glance; “Well, guess I can go, mother.....”
Cellphone use while driving is illegal in this state.
The violators go ballistic when pulled over.
Another time, at the same intersection, a lady pulled out in front me with a horse-trailer behind her pickup.
She was clearly lost; which warrants and justifies strange behavior, like turning onto a road without looking.
“I expected that,” I said. “Were it not for the fact I drove bus, I woulda T-boned ya.”
The speed-limit in front of my house is 40 mph.
It’s a residential area.
I’ve seen people zoom by at 70+ in their cars.
Our road is arrow-straight.
I’ve seen crotch-rockets pass at over 100 plus.
The Harleys might get 80.

• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service. My stroke October 26, 1993 ended that.
• “Pittsford” is an old suburb east of Rochester.
• “Wegmans” is a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at.
• “Pittsford-Plaza” is a large shopping-plaza west of Pittsford.