That's One Firm Ass
MEXICO | Tuesday, 15 April 2008 | Views [777]
I could write an entire book detailing the good, bad, ugly, and funny about Mexico’s City’s buses/peseros/microbuses but I can’t. Too overwhelming considering that I spend about 2 hours on them daily.
For anyone who’s visited the City, better yet, braved public transportation here will be familiar with the grey and green peseros that speed up and down all the main drags and budge their way through heavy traffic. Some amount of money has been spent on upgrading some of these buses this year but, not to worry, there are still throngs of the old things racing along their same old routes. What can I say about their design - it’s awkward at best. They’re certainly not designed for racing, being buses made for transporting the masses and all…but I’ve had enough experiences to know that the design is not a deciding factor nor is it important, but everything depends on the design of the driver.
Since they’re usually traveling far too fast for their frame, are often beyond capacity, and are, for a lack of a better word, bottom-heavy (I guess technically heptagon-shaped) corners are plain amusing with a hint of perilous-ness. I’m thinking they probably aren’t equipped with shocks, but what these peseros do on corners is seriously gravity-defying. Since we’re on the topic of “physics,” let’s talk inertia. For any lick-loving bus driver all those pesky stops and starts are a nuisance so for any bus drivers out there reading this, Mexican bus drivers have solved all of your “need for speed” problems. Just don’t stop. If there are only one or two people unloading, why stop? So long as you slow down enough for one person to hop off and then stop for a brief second where the second person can comfortably get off, but no more than a second, you’ll find that the bus will easily take off again.
Same goes for getting on the bus. I’ve seen people, old people and young people alike, take a running start when they see the bus slowing down because there’s a good chance that it just won’t stop for you. I’m not even kidding - a running start, like you would do before attempting the high jump. Others just crouch a little lower than usual and brace themselves for the high jump, no running start. The critical thing is that your judgment is near perfect. It would really suck to smack yourself on the loose sheet metal under the window of the on looking riders just because you jumped too late. And vice versa, but it’s generally better to be too early than too late; at least there’s a chance that you’ll roll into the bus as it moves forwards. There’s just no mercy when it comes to bus inertia.
So the micro quirk that’s actually relative to today is the distance between the seats. Your standard pesero is outfitted with rows of seats that flank either side of the heptagon and are probably about 2.5 feet in width (meant to seat two). This is generally agreeable since the aisle is 1.5 feet wide and allows for a little “spill-over” on either side should you yourself be a little bottom-heavy. Unfortunately, the space efficient peseros are indisputably built for short people like myself but even I would call it a squeeze trying to place my knees directly in front of me when sitting down. If the distance between your hip and knee is longer than 25 inches don’t bother paying the 25 cents to board the ship…but if you do decide to do it, take a picture standing up or sitting down, trust me, you’ll enjoy looking at it at some point.
The narrow aisles mean that if you’re lucky enough to be sitting down when the bus is crowded, it’s all hands and bellies from there on. Once, a woman had thrust her belly so far into my seat space that her saggy boob was in full contact with my cheek. I considered surrendering my valuable spot to her but she was on her way to Auditorio before I could make a decision. Today was a little different. Like I said, I’ve seen hands and bellies but the other end is something usually well-protected from the occasional wandering hand and not so occasional stares.
As I was traveling back from Periferico along the regular route back to Chapultepec, a man came up from behind me on his way towards the front of the bus where he would eventually climb down to safer grounds. But as maneuvered his way through the narrow aisle and passed me, his ass brushed my arm. It happens, right? No, it doesn’t happen like this, his ass was extraordinarily rock-hard and when I looked up all wide-eyed searching for the owner of this unbreakable backside, I discovered that this guy also had some serious booty on him. So here he was, a rare specimen: a large Mexican man with a firm fanny and the excess volume to boot.
Just as soon as I had encountered his ass, he and his backend had jumped off the moving bus and were gone. I settled back into today’s driver’s musical pick - techno - and made for home. Beyond the ass there was only class and back on the Bosques-bound bus I went come 1:30.
I did see a strange sight though. My stop is on the far end of this massive yellow bridge that crosses a fairly large valley and as we crossed the yellow bridge, I saw a small crowd of people gathered near the railing’s edge. My immediate thought was that something or someone had fallen off of the bridge and these guys were either witnesses or were there poking their heads into the excitement of a potential headliner. As we neared the group I saw a woman holding a dog and smiling as some chap across from her laughed. As we were on the passing end of them, I looked into the middle of the group and saw a girl nervously holding onto another girl’s shoulders while she adjusted some straps fitted around her waist and between here legs. Bungee jumping?
Well, I never found out what happened and there was nothing to see on my way back, but I figured that if anything did go wrong, I would undoubtedly be able to find it in tomorrow’s Metro and right there on the cover.
