Yup, I am still reposting my adventures as a delivery driver for a printing company… because those were some crazy times…

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So I was driving up Broadway in downtown San Diego, just doing the delivery driver thing. I saw the light in front of me turn yellow, so I sped up, you know, like you do. That was when I noticed the bus, that had pulled over to pick up or drop off passengers, start to pull out right in front of me. You know, like they do. I judged the distance and the clearance. I would just make it, if I stamped on the gas. I couldn’t move to the left because there was already a car stopping for the soon-to-be red-light there.

And I did make it. Sort of.

I had forgotten about the big passenger side rear view mirror on the van.

So you know how buses have those rivets on the sides? It turned out that the rear view mirror was at the same height as one of those rows of rivets. You know that game kids played, where you walk beside a wooden picket fence and drag a stick over the boards to make a cool clacking sound? Now picture that game, if the stick and the fence were both made of metal, and the kid was running at 30 miles an hour. It sounded like a freekin’ fifty caliber machine gun.

The part that I found particularly interesting, as I watched the bus zip by outside my passenger window, was the faces of the passengers on that bus. As I came up to each window, I would see a terrified face swivel quickly towards me, mouths formed into interesting shapes of dread and fear, eyes bulging wide. It was like I was watching the strangest movie ever made, all quick cuts of people caught in a moment of crisis.

I didn’t think it was funny while it was happening. I was too afraid. Afraid that the bus would keep pulling out and I would get sandwiched between it and the car on the other side. Fortunately the bus driver had the presence of mind to stop. I made it through the light while it was still more or less yellow. I still didn’t think it was funny for the next few minutes while I got my breathing and heart rate under control, and tried to dump all that adrenaline out of my system so my hands would stop shaking.

And I didn’t think it was funny later on, when I started to feel horrible for scaring the crap out of all those unsuspecting people.

But in between my fear and my guilt, for a few hours, I admit that I thought that was pretty funny.

I leave it for you to decide if it is funny now.

I could go either way.