The Garden City Refugee

On the Bus to Hamilton

April 18, 2019

Highlights from yesterday’s bus trip to and from Hamilton:

1. Free bread by the bus stop at Fairview Mall:

2. At Beamsville, our bus was following a truck pulling what was labeled as a “live bottom trailer.” As opposed to a dead one?

23. After getting to Stoney Creek, seated across from me on the Barton bus was someone with a sweatshirt from Thrasher skateboarding magazine. The same magazine that engaged the Atlanta Thrashers in what would become the first of many legal entanglements for the NHL franchise Manitoba taxpayers were eventually forced to purchase.

4. As said Barton bus began to fill up, a hotshot seated nearby refused to move her Calvin Klein purse from the seat next to her. Somehow I doubt she paid an extra fare for the purse.

5. Oddly, there was only one stroller on the way in, but on the return trip, there were two, along with a cart and a walker. Two-, three- and four-wheeled accompaniments and the Barton bus do, after all, go hand in hand.

6. When the driver hit a bump, one guy seated at the back spilled his Tim Hortons coffee all over the window, his bags and the guy in front of him. Plenty of it also made the floor and kept running down the aisle all the way to the back door. He kept blaming the driver, but he has to take the responsibility himself. Even Stevie Wonder can quickly figure out that Barton Street is pretty rough.

7. Seated across the aisle was a woman who:

• Had been hospitalized for bi-polar and other mental issues.
• Paid $70 for the silver mood ring on her finger. She knows it’s real silver from the number imprinted on the inside of the ring.
• Takes the train to visit her girlfriend, a hockey player who is a goalie, in Whitby every month.
• Plans those visits near the end of the month to coincide with her ODSP payment. Which begs the question as to how a welfare case knows so much about whether or not a ring is real silver.
• Still has wet hair after just getting out of the shower.
• Has a twin brother who has been in jail in Hamilton. He’s a good kid, she says, he just steals cars. This brother who now lives in Sarnia can’t have much sugar because he gets too hyper.

The things you learn from people on the bus.

8. Care for your memory?

9. Despite his plummeting popularity, Justin Trudeau has a street named after him in Hamilton:

10. Parking fail:

11. This “gender neutral” bathroom at Lime Ridge Mall isn’t a sign of progress in my books:

12. Is there such a thing as a non-financial credit union?

13. Seated in front of me on the return trip was a young woman checking out potential mates on an online dating site. She took an interest in a 29-year-old and a 30-year-old, both of whom were likely nearly a decade older than her, then proceeded to scroll through several pages worth of her profile pictures on Facebook. Before getting off with her friend, she was lamenting having to stoop to taking a job somewhere. My heart bleeds for the poor girl. Or not.