happy independence(?) day

so being a bus driver certainly frequently and almost invariably means working weekends while people who either don't own transportation (and this describes many, many people who live in the NYC area who were flocking to the port authority like lemmings casting themselves into the open arms of fate...) or don't want to deal with the traffic and than have to resort to calling their better halves or kids childish and churlish names when they realise that yes, indeed the traffic has stopped on 87... they can always sigh very loudly and obviously, complain about the air conditioning or the heat, the lumpy seats, the fact that the driver is letting the lexus SUV driver from new jersey who can't see the 11 foot tall bus 3 feet from his elbow pass him on the right instead of simply running him off the road. A man asked if "there was something that I could do..." about a whistling noise coming from somewhere on the roof. "It only does it when the bus is moving, he says and so I imagine saying, 'ok... how about this... you open the emergency hatch, right? get up on the seat and hoist yourself onto the top of the bus. don't worry, its a little bit hot, the aluminum may sear your bare skin just a little bit, but hold on, alright? ok, now i am going to get the bus up to about 70 and you look around for the source of the whistling and try to fix it.' but instead i tell him that its the wind whistling and no, there is nothing that I can do about it. all of the bare facts contained in my response but the disdain that i feel for his request put into the careless tone that I reply with.
i find it ironic (does that need to be said?) that i found myself bound to the bus from the first of july to the following monday by a seatbelt and schedule that just wouldn't quit. but then again so too, does labour day have that implied sense of irony for most of us are labouring on that day as well in the guise of a retail job that doesn't even lay out time and a half. hello and goodbye smurf told me at the port gate a minute and a half after i pulled up, just enough time to unload everyone and then drive back to kingston and again drive to nyc. hey, get there and drive on to oneonta, back in the seat, actually almost never having left and its back north, young man. not quite the battle cry of a generation of young tromped upon colonialists who were tired of getting told where to place their tax money on their tea. but then again, who knows, maybe i'll drink tea again until it runs from my pores and drive a charter to boston the next fourth of july, independence day.