This is Bus

I had just stepped off the ferry in lower Manhattan one recent weekday morning when I saw a young woman running down Wall Street.

For a moment I wasn’t sure what was happening. She was dressed too nicely to be a jogger and I didn’t see any cops chasing her, so she clearly wasn’t Public Enemy No.1.

And then in the next instant I saw a small private bus pulling away from the corner.

I suspect this woman’s company uses this vehicle to take their people to offices in Jersey and other locations that are difficult to reach by mass transit.

“Wait,” she shouted as the bus pulled away. “Wait!”

I felt badly for this woman, as it was obvious she didn’t have a hope in a hell in catching that thing.

“That sucks,” I thought sympathetically, knowing what’s it like to miss the boat or bus. “You’ll just have to wait for the next one.”

This young woman, however, had other plans.

As the van pulled away, she started running—I mean, running—as she rounded the corner and streaked down South Street like Man o’ War.

I could not believe my eyes. Never in my life have I seen anybody run like this for a bus or any other means of conveyance.

One of the reasons I usually wind up being insanely early for planes, buses, and all kinds of events is to avoid just this sort of insanity.

That’s why I take the early morning ferry. I could probably get the next one, but it’s just too close to the time I’m due at work and I don’t need that kind of drama so early in the day.

I checked to make sure I had a red light and then I stood on the yellow line and watched this woman fly down the street. The only thing missing from this scene was the old timey voice of racetrack announcer calling the action.

Hold the doors!

The van stopped at a red light on the next corner as the young woman reached it and started banging on the door. I waited until I saw her climb on board before going about my business.

I have to say that I was equally amazed and appalled by this tremendous effort.

Yes, this woman’s determination and willpower were something to behold, but exerting herself like that, risking a fall, a heart attack, or being hit by a car, just to get work on time is crazy.

But, sadly, it’s the kind of crazy I can well understand.

“She must have had a meeting that she could not afford to miss,” a friend of mine said.

And people can’t afford to be out of work.

Henry David Thoreau once said “go confidently in the direction of your dreams,” but sometimes you’ve got to run like hell to keep your paycheck.

Now I hate to be a cynic, but the sad truth of working life is that you can swim through a crew of crocodiles and battle a gang of grizzlies and still get the pink slip if some bean counter with a calculator decides you’re redundant.

My dad used to remind us that if you dropped dead at your job, the boss will step right over you to hire somebody else.

But I know that if it meant the difference between keeping or losing my job, I’d be the one tear-assing down South Street like a track star.

It’s just seems so sad that human beings—or at least some of them, anyway--have to do this in order to pay the bills.

I see that bus parked on South Street just about every morning. The slogan painted on the side of the vehicle says the company offers something it calls “global transportation solutions.”

I haven’t seen that woman since that morning and it's nice to think she won the lottery or hit it big at Vegas so she doesn't have to worry about money anymore.

But it's more likely that she bought a new alarm clock or started going to bed earlier, or did whatever the hell she had to do to make that bus.