TUESDAY, MAY 17
A very gray, chilly day, reminiscent of November. I join a line of about 20 riders and we slowly shuffle up to the head of the line. As I get close I see about 8 cars suddenly pulling up. What starts to happen is that riders approaching the line, stop approaching and just start getting into cars (hey!). The way the Vallejo line is set up is that the road where drivers approach is right next to the sidewalk where riders walk up to the line – makes it easy to kinda cheat and just jump into a car without walking up to the end of the line. When my turn comes I walk past a couple of cars that already have their quota and suddenly a lady’s head leans out of a car window and says, “Would you like to come, too?” As though she were inviting me to come along on some fun outing or great adventure. She had a cheery British accent and that made the invitation sound even more appealing.
So I and all my baggage pile into the other half of the back seat, already occupied by an Asian-American guy, who had been one of the afore-mentioned cheaters. “Kind of a free-for-all out there today”, I comment. “Yes, we’d noticed”, the British lady turned around and said, rolling her eyes in the direction of the fellow next to me.
As we started off, she introduced herself, “Caroline” and her non-British friend, the driver, also introduced herself, “Susan”, so of course I did too. We all smiled and drove off. The front seat passenger, the British lady, had very long hair in dreadlocks, many piercings, no makeup and was curled up in the seat eating some sort of fruit and cereal meal from a glass bowl. She was wearing well-worn and strategically torn jeans. The driver had Harry Potter red-rimmed glasses and was wearing an odd-looking crocheted black hat interspersed with small white fabric flowers and a pair of bright red gloves.
They both apologized for a broken rear window, the small part of the rear window, right next to where I was sitting. An attempt had been made to repair the missing glass with a piece of plastic and lots of bright yellow tape. Which hissed and flapped as we picked up speed. I asked how it had happened, and they were a little vague, but Susan said, “it actually came in handy this morning. I’d left the car keys locked in the car all night, so I was able to get in and retrieve them!” What good luck. You never know when a broken window will come in handy.
The front car seats were both covered with a black furry seat cover and on the top of each seat was a tie-dyed jersey jester hat. Lots of little clutter and objects were spilling out of the drink holder between the 2 seats.
In spite of the Mary Poppins ambience and general feeling of recycled chaos, or maybe because of it, the ride was very comfy and secure. The flower-headed driver drove us safely along in her well-used Toyota sedan as she and her friend chatted away, non stop. Unfortunately I could not hear them because the patched rear window was becoming undone and the effect was like being in a wind tunnel.
My Asian companion never said a word and in fact, barely moved. He kept his hands folded over a leather briefcase he held on his lap, occasionally tapping out an accompaniment to some inner rhythm.
When we pulled up to the stop in San Francisco, I realized I could not open my door. The rear handle had broken off. Susan quickly got out of the car and opened the door from the outside. “The car has a lot of interesting features,” she said. Both ladies chuckled. And so did I. I thanked them for a very pleasant ride and went on my way. Cheerio!
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