- how much horsepower their car has/its MPG city and highway.
- how to use power-tools without flinching.
- a solid, non-wavering opinion on the current championship sporting event.
- a fairly detailed knowledge of the current socio-politico-geographic layout of the current country in turmoil.
- how much they can benchpress/how much they tell others they can benchpress/when drunk.
- a fairly manly reason why they no longer 'work out'/a very high-brow, awe-inspired reason why they still work out (e.g. 'look good naked' is not a good reason. Good reason are : 'be there for my kids', 'so I can play with them till the sun goes down', 'for my volunteer work in the Tibetan hinterlands where I must free climb twice a day with 200 pounds worth of much needed medicine and food hanging from a caribinger pierced through my testicles')
- how to fix that thing that's making that really weird noise but wasn't before.
- what the HELL is all that crap when they open the fuse box.
- proper treatment of electrical burns.
- every term the car mechanic uses when they give an estimate ("Yeah, but to do it right, we'll have to re-align the Moss de-conflabulator, double jigg the pinion vice and router out the compression anchor tube.")
- NOT what sort of shampoo they use or why they use it.
- more or less what's going on when they have to pull over and pop the hood.
- from sight, whether a screw is 3/8" or a 1/4"
- what is, and what is NOT, a 'real beer'.
- at least one guy in the Joint.
- five different slang terms for mammary glands.
- if not what it actually means, then at least how to use the term 'load-bearing' in such a way as to appease wife/girlfriend/and Home Depot construction expert.
- at least one food, of which the only real version can be found at a very specific city (e.g. "You think that's pizza? You haven't had pizza unless you've been to...").
Thanks to Jay Morrison for the photo. Transit Drivers Bus drivers are an archetype in North American culture. In the imagination they are generous in girth, have staunch opinions about unions and eat 300% the recommended intake of red meat. The odd one adheres to a strict conspiracy theory, which they manage to work into the most innocuous conversations. At least, that's what's been ingrained in our collective subconscious along with "Han shot first" and "Dukakis, 1988". But transit drivers, like everyone else, are individuals. Unique, utterly one of a kind from the 5 billion others who roam this spinning mass of molten iron with the cool, carbon life-form infested shell. Sure, you see the reticent ones, who have a 100 yard stare and coolly watch passengers get mild hypothermia while they take their union-sanctioned 15 minute break inside their cozy bus. But there are other, more colourful characters as well. In my city, there is one that calls out every st...
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(I lie, I don't know anyone in jail.)
monky : purely coincidental. Yup. Absolutely.