Now I can safely say that I have been "broken in" by a contingency of the Saturday night Metro bus riding regulars who frolic to and fro from party to party. Last Saturday was to be my first 8-3am shift on a route here in Oxford. I had heard stories about the shift, but they smelled more like the stuff of hyperbole and legend. Now I know better.

I should have taken the clue when the conversation over the radio amongst other drivers was about how we needed to turn off the rear heaters so the partiers wouldn't throw up. I wondered if someone was going to heave, how was I going to prevent it and keep my attention on driving at the same time?

One group of 15 decided to momentarily bring to my bus their party celebrating a girl's 21st birthday. I got patted on the head like a puppy dog and amidst chants of "new bus driver!!" some drunk chick decided to flash me not once, but twice. To top it off an hour later, another drunk girl up-chucked on my bus. This all made the foot races the drunk guys would have with the bus up the streets pale in comparison. And I was on the slow route.

I kept thinking, "....now, what about the state of drunken stupor is fun?" You get to swim in your own vomitus; you get to imperil your life and the lives of others by showing how you can outrun a 36,000 pound diesel behemoth; you get to reveal your privates before total strangers. What's sadder is that for some of these, the deepest experience of human community and friendship they will have is that someone held their head up so they could puke in the toilet. Now isn't that a true friend?

"Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging; and whoever is deceived thereby is not wise." Proverbs 20:1