A couple of weeks ago, Marathon and I were heading into Centro. We caught an already full bus on a busy street. We didn’t have time to get situated before the bus started rolling again, which is not unusual. But before we could get a good hold of a handle or pole, the driver slammed on his brakes. Marathon and I lurched backward, reaching for a pole to keep us from falling down. My upper left arm hit something hard — I think it was the electronic card swiper/reader — and left a bruise. At the time of the quick braking, we were facing the back of the bus, so we we didn’t see it coming and didn’t know what had happened.

We got our balance, and found a more secure place facing forward, when we noticed someone exiting the front of bus. This was unusual because we were stopped behind a line of cars for a red light. And generally you exit from the middle of the bus and only enter from the front. Then we realized that it was our bus driver who had gotten off. As in, no one was behind the wheel!

We looked out the front window in time to see our driver march up to the driver’s side of the taxi cab in front of us, open the cab driver’s door, and chew him out. He kept going on and demonstrating until the the light turned green. Then our driver finished up his rebuke, slammed the cab door, walked back to his bus, and we calmly went on our way. (Evidently the cab had cut in front of the bus and was the cause of our lurching stop.)

I don’t know how unusual this type of situation is. There were raised eyebrows and shrugs from other passengers on the bus, so it doesn’t seem like an everyday occurrence. Thankfully.