Riding the #105 up the hill in Renton, I was seated behind a young Asian man, who was looking out the window nervously. He said nothing, but his body language said he was lost, or worried that he was on the wrong bus.

It’s a look you see often, and I sure wore it for my first few weeks after moving back to Seattle a few years ago. The bus system is complicated, so when someone’s lost or confused, it’s nice to offer help.

“Where are you headed?” I asked over his shoulder, hoping I sounded nice not nosy.

“Enricks,” he said to me, and I probably frowned. Then he said a full sentence in Japanese. Oh, he’s a foreigner. Seeing the confusion on my face, he said, “Enricks” again, and with that, the language barrier evaporated and I understood.

“Two more stops,” I said, holding index and middle fingers in a peace sign. He understood well enough to look relieved, and when the McDonald’s came into sight I rang the bus’s bell for him. “This’ll be your stop,” I said.

The bus rolled past the fast-food and stopped across the street, at Greenwood Cemetery, where Jimi Hendrix (“Enricks”) is buried. You can’t see the huge Hendrix memorial from the street, so I pointed in the general direction, and said, “You won’t miss it. It’s a bit gaudy.”

“Gody,” he said to me. “Hai, a god.” I know no Japanese, but I saw Shogun, so I know ‘hai’ means ‘yes’. Then he added, “Arigatou gozaimasu,” and translated it himself, “Thank you,” as he stepped off the bus.

♦ ♦ ♦

On days when there’s a home game for the baseball team, stadium staff often rides the bus. It’s cheaper and easier than driving and parking, and the #99 goes right by the ball park.

Often, I see two stadium staffers in uniform, an old white guy and an old black guy, but they usually ride separately. On this particular day they were both waiting at the Burien Transit Center. They said ‘hi’ to each other, like co-workers not friends, but on the bus they sat in sideways seats opposite each other for their commute. After a few sentences they said nothing more for their entire ride.

I said nothing either, but shook my head, because they were both carrying transparent plastic backpacks full of their personal stuff. One of them had a sci-fi novel and a pack of cigarettes in his backpack. The other had a small pink umbrella, a water bottle, two prescription medicines, and a change of socks.

For security reasons, fans at games aren’t allowed inside the stadium with a backpack, unless it’s transparent. Guess it’s required for employees, too.

For security reasons… so cops know you’re not a terrorist… would you wear clothes with transparent pockets? Would you pack transparent luggage for a trip? Would you drive a car with a transparent trunk and glove compartment?

I wouldn’t. There’s not a dildo or Barbie doll or anything illegal or embarrassing in my backpack, but privacy matters, especially mine. I’ll never go transparent.

See-through backpacks are the rule, though. It’s another slice of the rot eating America alive, and it’s about half the reason I’ve attended my last Major League Baseball game.

♦ ♦ ♦

On an extra social day a while back, I had two genuine conversations in my bus travels. First, an obviously homeless guy at the bus station was listening to a baseball game on his transistor radio, so I asked him about the radio. It looked like an antique, exactly like the Japanese-made transistor radio I had in the 1970s. He said he’d had it since the 1970s, and, “Man, I’ve listened to the Mariners lose a thousand games on this thing.”

We agreed we’d both be dead before the Mariners win a pennant, and talked about Trump and the weather and how weird it is being old, and I noticed but didn’t mention that he reeked of urine. Then his bus came, so he said goodbye and walked to catch the RapidRide H.

As he walked away, I could see from the two-tone color of his pants that he’d massively wet himself, and he’d been soaking in it, just like Madge and the dishwashing liquid.

Hours later, ready to return from a late afternoon with Mom, I waited at a bus stop in the Highlands, and an old black woman approached, carrying two bags of groceries. She was sweaty and it was hot, so I gallantly offered her my seat at the bus shelter.

She said thanks and sat, and told me all about what she’d bought at the grocery, and what she was planning to cook, and who’d be coming over for dinner, and how diabetes was eating her feet. She wasn’t all-talk, though, she could listen too, and asked where I was from, and a few other questions, all of which I answered.

It was a nice conversation, but guess what? That lady also stank of urine. Which seemed unlikely, because she was clearly a middle-class lady out in the ‘burbs, so I wondered whether maybe the pee-stink was me?

It hasn’t happened often, but it has happened. I generally wear the same pants for a week at a time, and sometimes there are penis-drips after peeing, or I’ve peed standing up and the liquid has mysteriously shot all over my pants instead of into the toilet.

Also, factoring in the baseball conversation earlier, plus several hours spent with my mom and sister, I’d reached the limits of my sociability, so it was sweet relief when the bus came, and it was too crowded for me and the nice lady to sit together. She sat up front in a sideways seat, and I went almost all the way to the back.

After sitting down, I discretely ran my fingers over the crotch of my britches, then took a whiff of my hand, and to my relief, nope, I was carrying no particular scent of urine. This time.

7/2/2026

Transit Takes

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