My Friend, R16137

I live above a bus loop and metro station. Bright lights are a constant, and the noise only takes a break in the middle of the night. It’s a nice steady 65 decibels, in the “annoying but not technically dangerous” range.

The trade-off is people watching. That’s my view. People. All day, every day as they filter in and out of the station and all the different buses that come through.

For the first few months living here, I never really thought about the buses themselves. Until I started noticing that there was a type of bus that was especially loud.

Apocalypse loud.

In the warmer months, the apocalypse buses were especially awful because I wanted to sit with my door open, and these buses were so loud I had to close my door because I couldn’t hear myself think. I live with constant noise, and somehow they found a type of bus that was extra loud and obnoxious.

It was driving me to anger. This added intrusion of din into my already loud world quickly became a source of stress, anxiety, fear and a desire to destroy things. All common, reasonable emotions when faced with the sound of the world coming to an end, mind you.

After putting up with this sonic assault for a couple of weeks I decided I was going to write the transit company about these problem buses. I hatched a plan. A clever plan. For a day or two I would write down all the buses that made this cacophony, and take the matter to customer service at the transit company. I would write a complaint letter that would make my grandmother proud!

I wasn’t sure it would do any good, of course, but I at least wanted to feel like I was making an effort. Within the first morning, four of these apocalypse buses came by and I wrote down the bus number each time.

It was the same number. There was only one bus making this racket.

This made it easier! I only had to fix one bus and my problem would be solved.

Well let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that I for one was bloody excited about this. I was in a good mood when I wrote my email to the transit company. No Karen stuff here. I kindly informed them that there was a particular bus with a sound that was well outside the range of normal bus sounds — a sure sign that this was a sick bus in need of medical attention.

I wanted to get results, you see, so I thought if I’m polite and frame it as a benefit to them — saving them money on a bigger repair down the road — I might actually get results.

A funny thing happened.

No, the transit company did not respond.

What happened was I started to enjoy when I heard the sound of that bus. The worst-sounding bus in the entire city was now my buddy. I had differentiated that bus from all the others in my mind. Doing so made this noisy bus, R16137, special, in my mind.

I started to look forward to hearing its wail. No matter where in my flat I was, or what I was doing, if I heard that wail I would go out to the balcony to see my friend, the 137. It was like that friendly cat you always meet on your evening walk. That kind of buddy.

All these normal quiet buses were just buses, but the 137 was special. It was my buddy. A familiar sound that, now, was putting a smile on my face when it came by my neighbourhood.

A week after I sent the email, I got a form response from the transit company. That day was the last day I heard my buddy come by.

I don’t know if my friend got sent to a different part of town, or is in the shop getting the help it needs. I hope it’s the latter. I hope it’s a full spa treatment — floor hosed down, gum scraped off seat bottoms, the works.

I want my friend to live its best bus life, because friends always want what’s best for each other.