roads to uncertainty

the writer charles bukowski once wrote a poem that paraphrased, said that the things that will kill a man with stress are not the big magnificent events in life, but the simplest things, like bending over to tie a shoelace and having it break. its the proverbial straw. and when you aren't expecting the simple things, they take you unawares like the sting of a mosquito that wakens you from a summer doze.
driving a bus on the extra board is always fraught with uncertainty. its by nature an uncertain job that you will drive all over the interstates and freeways without quite knowing where the next trip will take you and your 45 foot, 20 ton companion. and its to be said that there is some amount of stress in this occupation. in the last few months, i've had more than a few days of this sort that led me to question the sanity of trusting my life and well-being to a fiberglassed body hurtling past semis and interstate drivers at 70 mph. i've driven through, up and down unplowed roads over and through snow that in the mountains of rte 28 on early evening sundays when the plow drivers have certainly taken off for the night back home to enjoy a cup of hot chocolate and wish the few fools who are driving at that hour the luck and beneficence of some god.
i've had nights and days filled with rear seat drivers, convulsing passengers taken away by ambulance alongside the thruway, bus engines blowing up on rte 17 in new jersey and assorted unexpected events. and through it all, the only real stress happens through the expected rudeness that a commercial driver experiences from other drivers... people hogging the left hand lanes while driving at 60 mph, people in such a rush to enter the gaping mouth of the lincoln tunnel that they cut you off at the toll booth driving a car that sits so far below the bus that you could almost rumble over them without seeing them and the ever popular driver who passes you on the thruway and then slows down again to a maddening pace just a few miles per hour slower than you can go, but always accelerates just higher than your maximum speed when you try to pass.
and through these months, i've had a month long hold down. a hold down is the time you spend driving a regular drivers route while he or she is on vacation or sick. that month was magical. oh, i knew when i was going in and what i'd be driving back and what to expect of traffic along the way. it was like growing up and discovering you had found out what you wanted to be when you grew up. but still, passengers and the new jersey dot always throws you a few curve balls. engineers in new jersey seem to delight in suddenly removing lanes from a busy highway to allow for the creeping presence of more strip malls that bring more traffic or for starting construction projects that never seem to be completed. concrete barriers are erected and sit blocking perfectly good lanes through the summer and into the fall and of course, winter stops the work again, but then again, hey, its winter, right? there exist on many nj highways electric signs that spell out the uncompleted works of a harried and rushed construction/ traffic engineer. i've read many that simply stated "abandoned vehicles..." is this an invitation to abandon your vehicle alongside the road or an opportunity to pick a car up that someone else just simply didn't need any longer? "summons will be issued" is another one. a summons for what? i guess they weren't sure and suddenly decided that it would be safest just to make a broad threat and warning. the nj turnpike is also known for signs that are misleading. three times approaching new york city and the exit for the lincoln tunnel, i've read the highway signs overhead that normally read 'exit 16 lincoln tunnel,' had flipped over to read 'roadway closed do not enter...' the first time i saw this one this summer i panicked and wondered if i should exit the turnpike, maybe there was an accident? i considered the wisdom of heading down an unknown exit ramp when i noticed that plenty of other drivers, undeterred by the sign continuing along the turnpike. what the hell, i figured, must still be open. and it was. i had thought that it was a simple oversight on some dot workers part or an elaborate practical joke. was someone asleep at the wheel, so to speak? but the next two times i've seen the same signs made me wonder whether it wasn't simply an attempt at traffic psychology, to see how many drivers could be lured down to the little town of rutherford. perhaps rutherford's chamber of commerce even paid someone to bring in the traffic.
one day a woman threw me the biggest curve ball when she asked what the smell on the bus was. i hadn't especially noticed anything odd and told her so. 'was the bus just fumigated?' 'excuse me?' i asked her. 'was the bus just fumigated for bugs? because it smells like bug killer...' i told her that it was probably only the toilet, which is a chemical toilet,. but i doubt that that held much water with her. after all, you never know what you're getting into when you climb onto a bus whether you sit in the window seat next to a complete stranger or in the captain's chair.