: It Wears You Down.

Chipping away one sane nerve after another. The bus is the destroyer of men, women and children. I have had to seek refuge in alternative modes of getting to and fro my place of employment. Last week I drove to the bus pick up spot in the sad street light glow of the 7-Eleven parking lot and saw the bleak faces of my ACF riding compadres, I just left and drove to Newark, parked and rode the PATH train to 14th street in Manhattan.

I did it twice last week.

The bus. It's a bitch.

: FDM (Feather Duster Man) keeping the craziness to a minimum.

St. Patrick's Day in the epicenter of NYC amateur drunks in Port Authority Bus Terminal. Mostly college aged kids from NJ and PA. People have been getting their Irish on since 10am this morning.

Was tossing my pizza trash and had a brief chat with FDM. He was keeping the craziness in check down in the basement. Said earlier in the evening things were out of control, he had 17 puke calls since his shift started at 4pm, said was not a record but the night is still young.

One odd sight was a civil war reenactment troop all angry that they missed their last bus to wherever they were headed to. Pissed off drunk civil war wannabes stuck in NYC for the night, ya had to chuckle.

: Everyone is Irish Today.

St. Patricks day today. While waiting to clamber aboard the NYC bound ACF, the rarely speaks PT Cruiser dude announces "alot of drinking I bet will happen today". Why do people need to state the obvious, especially a person who rarely speaks. It was all I could do to hold back my automatic 3rd grade response of "duh".

Yes it's St. Paddy's day, people will drink, and maybe even wear green. The ride home tonight has the possibility of being very interesting.

happy St. Paddy's Shane.

: Staying Contained

Something to whine about.

Container Man. This is a man who is so over organized and planned out. Sits down opens his bag, opens the box he keeps his headphones inside, then opens the dainty little velvet bag that his iPod resides in, puts on his tunes, then stands up takes off his jacket folds it meticulously puts it inside a crinkly loud plastic shopping bag, then puts that back in his main bag, now comes out his phone from a nylon zippered pouch, the phone also is contained in a un-stylish leather cover, the phone screen has a plastic film over to prevent scratches. Almost forgot about the bag that houses the reading glasses case that he keeps his glasses inside of.

Once he is all settled, he tosses his tie over his shoulder in the most cavalier of gestures. His public signifier that all is right.

Upon entering the tunnel and very close to the terminus of our contained ACF voyage, the dude of containment starts the exact ritual in reverse order.

Everyday.

Everything in its place, the world will now function as it should. Thank you for restoring order to our world.