our 89th weekly open mike

Let’s see what happens when your host (me) has nothing to say. Step right up, speak your mind, tell a story, sing a song, whatever.

7/18/2026

Anything goes

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Riding from Burien to Renton on the #560, the route goes on Interstate-405 for a few miles. As it enters Renton, two of the northbound lanes split away and become two exits, south onto a different freeway or north onto Rainer Avenue, while two other lanes bypass those exits. The #560 is supposed to take that second exit, north onto Rainier Ave, but oops, our driver had the bus on the part of the freeway that can’t exit — concrete roadblocks are in the way.

In the driver’s defense, let’s concede that the freeway is stupidly designed there, and the signage is inadequate. Furthermore, the #560 has been contracted out to drivers from Pierce County Transit — one county south of where they’re driving — so the drivers aren’t very familiar with the roads.

This driver pulled the bus onto the freeway’s shoulder, and stopped, then called Dispatch on the radio for advice on what to do.

Yikes! I am car-phobic, a white-knuckle passenger in cars, but usually have no worries on a bus, because buses are big. If there’s a wreck, the people on the bus will be OK; it’s the people in cars who’ll be dead. But this seemed crazy dangerous — freeway drivers at 55 mph do not expect a city bus to be parked on the shoulder, so my suggestion would be that if a bus driver misses the exit, the very first thing NOT to do is stop the bus on the freeway.

With his speaker on, everyone could hear as Dispatch spent several minutes looking at maps, then told the driver to proceed a ways on I-405 to exit 4B, which would bring us to a few blocks of city streets, and then an on-ramp to the same freeway headed the other direction. After that, he’d be able to take the next exit and resume our route.

From the shoulder, the driver took us from zero to 55 mph in about three minutes, while cars honked and swerved around us, and then he made another mistake, taking the bus onto exit 4A, not 4B. This meant we were headed east toward the distant suburbs of Maple Valley and Black Diamond, farther and farther in the wrong direction.

“Oh, man,” said a passenger who had to be somewhere, “I am going to be so late.”

A bus needs serious space to turn around, and the freeway we were now on is mostly rural. We went miles before a passenger suggested a suitable turnaround spot, and the driver took the advice, and thankfully did not stop the bus on the shoulder to radio Dispatch again. In a small commercial area, where it was kinda tight and the bus had to back up a bit, he got us headed in the right direction, toward Renton, where we waited through some traffic lights, and got onto Interstate-405 again, now southbound.

When the driver took the correct exit to get us onto Rainier Avenue, the passengers responded with a smattering of applause.

We pulled into the next stop about half an hour behind schedule, and directly in front of the next #560 bus, which was right on time.

Everybody makes occasional mistakes, but the part that scared me was stopping the damned bus on the freeway. Dude! Drive on, call Dispatch while you’re driving, or ask passengers for advice, or just take the next off-ramp and wing it — but don’t frickin’ stop the frickin’ bus on the frickin’ freeway.

♦ ♦ ♦

On a different day and headed the opposite direction, a RapidRide #F bus came into the Renton Transit Center, headed to Burien. Its sign said Burien, where I wanted to be, so I climbed aboard, waved my pass to pay my fare, and sat on the cushion I carry with me because the #F is a terrible, terrible ride.

While the bus idled, an old dude limped slowly toward the door. The driver waited and then kneeled the bus for him, and when he boarded he asked, “Is this bus going to The Landing?”

The driver said, “Yes,” and either that’s the wrong answer, or this was the wrong bus. The Landing is a gawdawful shopping mall a mile or so north of where we were, and that’s where the south- and westbound #F route starts. If this bus was headed toward The Landing then ① its sign was wrong, ② the bus was on the wrong side of the road, and ③ everyone on board needed to get off.

We all started asking the driver where the bus was headed, and she got more and more flustered, and kept saying, “The Landing.” She was an African immigrant, a woman maybe 30. English was difficult for her and what she said was difficult for the passengers to understand, but she insisted that the bus was going to The Landing, so almost everyone got off the bus. Then a few passengers who’d already been riding the bus spoke up and said, no, we came from The Landing, and we’re going to Burien.

The driver said something nobody could understand but shook her head yes, and it soon became clear that she’d confused “Is this bus going to The Landing?” for “Is this bus coming from The Landing?” This was indeed the bus everyone wanted, so we all got aboard again, and settled in for the long, long, long ride to Burien.

A few passengers grumbled, but most were understanding. This driver might have been in Zimbabwe or someplace on the African continent perhaps six months ago, but I like immigrants and immigration. I thought about shouting, “Welcome to America,” and would’ve meant it sincerely, but it would’ve sounded like sarcasm, so I stayed quiet.

The ride proceeded well, until crossing over the freeway, where she had us in the wrong lane. We would’ve been forced to turn right at the light, instead of left. A passenger shouted, “Hey, what the hell,” and the driver figured it out, and angled the bus into the correct lane at the last minute, and we stayed on route.

After that, my guess was that this was her first time driving this route. A few blocks later, we were in the right lane of Southcenter Blvd as it’s about to become a freeway on-ramp, so I walked up and said quietly to her, “We gotta be over two lanes.”

“Oh, thank you,” she said, and signaled and switched, and drove the bus under the freeway instead of onto it.

Without further incident or conversation, our RapidRide #F made its way to the end of the line at the Burien Transit Center, where an annoying prerecorded voice always says, “This is the last stop. All passengers should de-board at this time.” As always, I replied, “De-boarding at this time,” and got ready to de-board with everyone else.

Other than coming close to those two wrong turns, she’d actually done a great job. None of the awful brake-work that bothers my back, and she took all the route’s sharp turns more tenderly than most drivers. Usually, they accelerate while the bus is turning, and you gotta hang on or you’ll slide out of your seat, but she’d taken us around the corners at a slower pace, then picked up speed on the straightaway. It’s a simple thing, but makes the ride soooo much better.

She also mastered the tiny roundabout near Renton, becoming only the third driver in my hundreds of #F trips to maneuver the bus around that too-tiny circle without bumping the wheels onto its elevated brick center.

Getting off the bus, I lingered at the door long enough to say, “Smooth ride, thank you.”

“I am sorry about my confusion,” she said.

“That’s OK,” I said. “It’s a confusing route.” And it is, with its dozens of turns and loops and swirls.

Then the security guards came onto the bus to shoo stragglers and sleepers off, “End of the line, everybody.” So I didn’t have time to say that she’d learn the route, but what matters is that she already handles the bus better than about 95% of Metro’s drivers.

7/17/2026

Transit Takes

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Some days ago, I wrote about Mom having serious memory issues, and if you read that then you deserve this follow-up:

Mom had been mentally foggy for a week before that incident, just nowhere near as bad. And afterward, talking and texting about it, my sister and I put clues together and realized that Mom had grown foggier after being prescribed low-dose oxy for the pain in her fractured tailbone.

The pain had been decreasing anyway, so we tapered her off the oxy a week early, and now Mom reports more pain, but she’s Mom again.

The choice is, no pain and a flatlined old lady where Mom used to be, or our actual mother — knowing her name, knowing who we are, remembering her life, etc — in moderate pain. The three of us talked it over, and unanimously decided to go with Mom in moderate pain.

♦ ♦ ♦

She fell twice more on Monday morning, first from bed, and then from the toilet. This was before I got to the house she shares with my sister Katrina, who calls 9-1-1 after every fall, because just like in the commercials, when Mom’s fallen, she can’t get up without help.

Mom wasn’t injured, and says her only pain is the same back pain she’s been having for weeks — after an earlier fall — but she’s taken four falls so far this month. Every fall is a gamble that something could be broken, especially if she falls in the bathroom, surrounded by the hard porcelain of the toilet and tub. Every fall says louder and louder to me that maybe Mom should be in a nursing home.

I intend to broach the subject with Katrina this afternoon or tomorrow. It’ll be a difficult conversation, and Katrina will probably talk me out of it. To her great credit, she really wants Mom to stay in their house, where Katrina is almost literally always there for Mom.

♦ ♦ ♦

Katrina likes to have me along for Mom;s medical appointments, so I’ve tagged along a dozen times. It’s depressing as hell, not just because it’s Mom but because it’s the American medical system.

Every appointment can only be scheduled two months in the future. There are no openings quicker than that, which is, of course, intentional and profitable.

Every visit has a co-pay. Not a problem for Mom, thankfully, but a roadblock to health care for millions, which is, of course, intentional and profitable.

At the eye doctor, nobody knew how to get the vision-testing machines aligned to the level of someone sitting in a wheelchair. The notion that a person in a wheelchair might need an eye exam had apparently never occurred to anyone on staff.

Mom’s main doctor is a geriatrician — a specialist in medicine for old people — but the clinic has only two disabled parking spaces. We always end up parked at the hardware store across the same strip mall, hoping no-one will park in the adjacent stall, because we need extra space for Mom’s wheelchair.

Before every appointment, they want to weigh Mom. She’s frail, and can’t stand on a scale without holding on to something, but they don’t have anything she can hold on to except me. When I offered to hold her hand for stability as she wobbled onto the scale, the nurse’s assistant was aghast, like I’d suggested cheating or something.

Every prescription is a phenomenal clusterfuck. We go to pick it up, and the pharmacist tells us the refill has been denied, but the doctor’s office says they authorized the refills. The pharmacist says they only carry this med in 5 mg or 15 mg, but the doctor has prescribed 10 mg, and they can’t just fill the prescription with twice as many 5 mg tablets so we have to wait an hour for confirmation that it’s OK from the doctor’s office. Etc, every damned time.

All the employees are generally polite, but the actual giving of a damn is not allowed.

On our most recent visit, Katrina, Mom, and I were waiting in the little examining room when the doctor opened the door. He saw me, and his eyes widened in surprise, because I was wearing a mask. He wasn’t. Katrina wasn’t, and Mom wasn’t, but they’re not healthcare professionals.

“Do you want me to wear a mask? I can do that,” the doc said, flustered. His assumption was that I’m sick or susceptible or something, but no, it’s only common sense. I wear a mask when I’m riding the bus, or anywhere in public around strangers, and definitely in a medical environment — and the doctor doesn’t?

“Do I want you to wear a mask?” I echoed back at him, frustrated. “I want you to be a good doctor for my mom,” and then I saw Katrina’s eyes signaling “Shut up, Doug,” so I shut up, Doug, and didn’t say that if the frickin’ doctor doesn’t understand the efficacy of masking up when he’s seeing dozens of patients in a day, why should we take any of his medical advice seriously?

7/16/2026

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