poetic justice

so there is such a thing as a small bit of poetic justice after all. buses are like most vehicles... doors, windows, steering wheels and door locks. with mounting hysteria over 9/11, terrorists and the republican national convention, we were given specific and very clear orders (through another fabulous waste of paper memo...) to always lock our buses up, at our garage, at the terminal and especially at the port authority. who knew, maybe some evildoer would choose to train, much like mohammed atta, at a cdl drivers school, hijack or steal a bus and use it for whatever nefarious purposes. no more hijacking a bus (or plane...) to cuba. i suppose that terrorists have seen the movie 'speed' and know that it is very easy for a madman to rig a bomb capable of blowing a bus apart if it falls below a certain speed limit. so who knows what may happen? my happy world like many other people has disintegrated into locking buses in our garage parking lot within full view of a twenty-four hour garage mechanic staff and emergency evacuation procedures of the port authority. when i started out we were given door keys for the buses. we have about five different models in our line, give or take alot of variation in modifications, condition and lengths, but the one rare bird that i didn't drive very much as it was and is a sought after close to the top of the line (and new, an important consideration with some buses out there having a million miles or more on their clocks...) was the prevost xl2. a nice bus, sure, but lacking in some common sense aesthetic and design, but its a good tourer, has a nice turning radius and like i said, its new. so my key that went to the xl2 doorlocks wasn't used often at all. when i had the opportunity to try, i found that my key fit in the lock but wouldn't turn the tumblers and i invariably had to walk back to the garage and shamefacedly ask a mechanic for the use of his key. what was wrong here? was it me? did i not know how to open a locked door. i've had practice, even a monkey could be trained to that, any mammal with an opposable thumb at least. and i had two, but couldn't get my key to open the door. but then i began to hear from other drivers hired newly like me who had trouble with their keys opening the xl2. and then the mechanics began to say that they thought that a new bunch of freshly cut keys had been cut poorly and were responsible. they sized the old one and my key up and it looked close, but not quite right. i approached the dispatchers. i had solved the mystery. i wasn't the only one with bad keys. generations had been given faulty keys and we had to have new ones made. wasn't there a key or two at the main dispatchers desks? the heart of the operations and driver supervision and instruction?
no, and then i had to see someone upstairs, at a desk, with no connection to the garage or a bus or a driver. huh? to get a key? yep, but this person wasn't in on that saturday, in fact wasn't in on weekends at all and if it were a weekday, well, then i more than likely wasn't anywhere near that office, but sitting on a bus at the terminal on protection or if i was in the office, it was at night after a long day. was she there now? no, gone home for the day. and so it went. assigned to locked xl2. ask mechanic for key. open door. stare dumbly at the two keys in my hand. wonder why even the mechanics at the garage were closely guarding their key. it became a holy grail. out of touch, but so close, so easy, yet so far.
and then one day, the straw came that broke the back. i asked again if it were possible that the woman were in the office. no, it was sunday. any keys here? no. but there was the matter of the key given to me by bill, the dispatcher on a trip from new york to utica. i had to stay overnight and with no key, i was hesitant about leaving the bus in a motel parking lot open. he volunteered the office key. was this it? it looked exactly the same as mine and unfortunately, performed the same. as in not at all. it was from the same batch. so there i stood. n., one of the dispatchers, said, what happened to that key we gave you? it doesn't work. yes, it does, n. said, i've used it myself dozens of times to open doors. i was flabbergasted. i knew that it didn't work, but here i was, being looked at like an orangutan with opposable thumbs.
flash forward to a week later. i am trying to use a key in a slot of an xl2. nothing doing, when n. walks up around my bus. hey, he says, can i use your keys, i forgot mine back at the office. no problem. i walk around to the bus he needs to get into. an xl2. i say, this is an xl2, yeah? well, you can use my keys, but they won't work. huh? he says. i try. it doesn't turn. i hand him the keys and watch with delight as he grunts and pushes and pulls trying to get my key to turn. how did you get yours open? the mechanics key, i say. part one of poetic justice.