That Day I Was Kidnapped By The MBTA

The 65 Bus is one of the best routes. The area it tranvserves actually serves stakeholders. From residential to business, retail, and at least three excellent links to the larger MBTA.

There are negatives. The route doesn't run on Sundays which is a disservice to the large Jewish and senior communities that it serves. The routes are managed excellently in the mornings from 6:00–9:00 AM and 4:30–6:30 PM as the medical staff commutes to/from Longwood, but then suffers both gappy and surely service in the interim.

On a late morning route that I realised the bus had gone off Brookline Avenue. Being too early for a game at Fenway, I assumed there was road construction, but then suddenly I was near the Museum. I stood up to ask the driver what was going on and they broke hard. I went flying into a pole. I grabbed it though I was loaded with bags and really hurt my shoulder. If I had been a second slower, I would have been on the floor. The driver was shouting, “I didn’t know you were on the bus!”

“I thought it was empty!” And a endless verbiage about their break, which was extremely important.

Information: This is a filler. The driver just does one 65 route and returns to the garage for a break. Perhaps the schedule is exhausting performing a task like this on various routes all day. Perhaps its a gig with a lot of breaks and good pay. No one knows because the MBTA does not publish or make accessible through basic request such information. Lest the Chinese find out? Because it empowers ISIS? I don’t know. My intuition is that it is one of many strings in the faulty scheduling system that if pulled would reveal that then entire scheduling process could be better performed by grandparents who use the MBTA two or three times a week or a pet monkey or a being who just dropped in from the outer reaches of Space. This in turn would expose the rampant over-spending on salaries, perks, undisciplined drivers without knowledge of streets, routes or schedules -and proud of this fact(!), unqualified supervisors, and mostly, mostly, mostly unqualified management.

By this time we were at the E-line and the driver was telling me to catch the train. I explained I am unfamiliar with the line and don’t know which direction to take. Neither did my driver, which didn’t stop them from pointing me in X direction. I asked why they couldn't return me to Kenmore — after all, that was what I had paid for in advance, though only bus, I hadn't a full pass.

“No! I will be late for my break! Now I can’t talk to you any more! Just tell the driver I said it’s OK!”

Yes, this is a stupendous assurance of commercial credit, “That other person said I can!”

So I went out, angry, aching shoulder, carrying two heavy bags and waited for the trolley. I was due at work, so this is MY hours being cut for the driver’s break.

When the X-direction trolley arrived I went to the driver and asked if this were headed to Kenmore. No, the opposite direction. So I again waited for a trolley to Kenmore.

“Kidnapping consists of unlawful restraint of a person’s liberty by force or show of force [‘I won’t return you, I will be late for my break!’]. Under modern law, this crime usually only requires that the victim be taken to another location or concealed.”

I was also dumped. “The act of abandoning a living person, simply ‘dumping’ someone, it is generally not a crime, unless accompanied by other criminal actions like intimidation, stalking, or kidnapping.”