The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round

This morning while ignoring the scary lady handing out Metros in the Davis Square subway station I happened to notice that the headline on the terrible rag in her hand read something along the lines of "MBTA Vows Improvements to Commuter Rail." As a thoroughly selfish person who only uses the Commuter Rail for going home on Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was understandably a bit miffed.

WHERE THE HELL IS THE VOWED IMPROVEMENT FOR THE MBTA'S RETARDED STEPCHILD, THE BUS??????

As I stood way too close to the edge of the platform, my salty tears igniting sparks upon the third rail, I realized that I have the power to right this wrong. I have a blog.

And so, here's a poorly organized and even more poorly planned list of things the MBTA should do to improve its bus service.

• Enlist the help of some Transformers. Did you see how all those construction vehicles joined together to make one bad ass mother fucking robot in Transformers 2? This is what should happen whenever a pair of buses running the same route end up leap-frogging each other from stop to stop along the street. It looks pretty stupid when two instances of the same bus are mere seconds apart, especially when you've been waiting in the cold for half an hour for a bus that should've been there a long frickin time ago. However, if they combined into one uber bus that can shoot missiles and crush pyramids - well, that would still be pretty stupid, but at least it would be entertaining.
• Provide heated seats. I understand that warming all of the bus stops is prohibitively expensive, but I'd like a little help warming my ass up, thank you very much. And that butt scalding back row of seats in some of the older buses doesn't count, since A) that only happens in the summer, when the last thing I need is a fricasseed posterior and B) it frickin hurts.
• And while we're at it, install some climate controls in every seat. My piggy toes are cold and I'd like some heat, but the drunk homeless man next to me is going to throw up unless he's kept at a balmy sixty degrees or lower. Let's keep everybody happy and vomit free.
• Install some damn Plug-Ins. I suggest lavender because it mingles nicely with the smell of body odor and despair prevalent in all the buses headed to or from scenic Somerville.
• Hire some babysitters. You know what the real problem with the bus is? A complete lack of accountability. There's no one at the end point of the routes watching to see if these things are on time or if they're leaving at all. You could drive an MBTA bus to Mohegan Sun, gamble for five hours, then drive back with a load of hookers and no one would be the wiser. If someone's watching and making passive aggressive notes on a clipboard, maybe the schedule will be treated as more than a suggestion.
• Distribute hot towels. I don't really know what the hell these are for, but the rich people in first class seem to really like them. If rich people like it, then hot damn is it for me.
• Install cell phone jamming equipment. I can't tell you how many perfectly lovely bus rides I've had ruined by douche bags who have to yell into their damn phones. If I can hear you saying how Shoniqua was acting a fool or how the clerk at the Whole Foods was sooooooooooooooooooo rude because he couldn't tell you the difference between the two bags of granola in your hands over the insanely loud head phones that are some day going to lead to me needing to learn American Sign Language then you might be a little too loud.
• Charge by the pound. I'm pretty sure I've been over this one before, but implementing such a revolutionary fare structure would surely get the MBTA out of debt in a month and a half. You know who won't start walking just because their fare went up? Fatties.

I fully intend to take the above list of suggestions to the MBTA's next town meeting. I'm also taking bets on how long it will take them to toss me out.