71A

I took the bus into campus Monday because of all the excitement. I'm not sure what made me think that was a better idea than riding my bike. In the end, it just meant Corey had to ride his bike home and then come get me in the car after midnight when I was freaking out in the pressing Obama crowd.

Anyway, the bus was a nightmare. The 71A, as I have mentioned before, has been cut from ten times per hour to three times per hour. Now, it often takes an hour to travel the 3.5 miles from my house into campus. There are, obviously, still the same number of people who need to ride this popular bus route. So it gets a little ripe in there, particularly on a warm day. On this day, the driver was being extra generous in allowing people in the doors. People were crammed so far past the yellow line that the driver struggled to even open the doors, lest he crush them with the mechanical door parts.

We were crammed so tightly that every stop took over five minutes to maneuver people out of and then into the bus. Women with babies teetered in the aisle; they had nowhere to sit because the seats were filled with the elderly. They couldn't work their way back the aisle because it was so jammed with people. So the babies cried and the moms tried to grab the straps and not tumble.

I was in an aisle seat, reading a book, when a man wearing shorts, a fanny pack, and bright red tube socks pressed his way to the pole by my chair. It was so packed that he had to lean in toward me to stay alive. I spent the next forty minutes with a fanny pack-covered penis pressed against my ear, reeking of cigarette smoke and jiggling when he coughed.

Pittsburgh Port Authority, I implore you. Use the drink tax revenue wisely. Balance your books. Restore the number of 71A routes to the necessary number and stop doing this to people.