Diary of a Mrs Dad 9: Mind the Step
Dude: The First World War was when the dinosaurs died and people didn’t know each other, so they killed each other.
A friend who is the CEO of a community transport company catering for the elderly and disabled asked me to fill in for a few days while one of his drivers went on holidays. I thought about how beneficial it would be for me to help the disadvantaged but thought mostly about the cash, and said I’d give it a go.
First up, I went with the regular driver, Les, on his run. He’s a retired truck driver and, as he handed me a hot cup of coffee with a shaking hand, I mused that he wouldn’t be much younger than the old folk he drives around. Les told me there wasn’t anything he hadn’t driven in his life and that he knew every sneaky way around the city, which was unfortunate, as it meant I couldn’t possibly remember the route he took.
‘Don’t ask about people if they stop coming regularly,’ offered Les. ‘I asked about some passengers who stopped coming on the trips and I found out all of them had died.’ Must be the curse of pleasant chitchat with the old, I thought.
We picked up four oldies, me ducking out to lower the step and secure their shopping trolleys in the back. Then we dropped them at Victoria Market and later drove them home, helping with their shopping loads. In the afternoon, we picked up only one old lady, a big Russian woman who had a very high-pitched voice that made her sound like Con the Fruiterer’s wife, Marika. I don’t think Les was too fond of ‘Marika’, as he was slightly deaf and couldn’t hear her gentle, high-pitched waffling. As we passed a hotel in Carlton, Marika told us (really just me, because Les couldn’t hear her) that she used to work in the bar there a very long time ago.
‘All the peoples would come in and stare at me,’ she told us in her best man-pretending-to-be-a-woman voice, ‘because womens did not work in bars back then.’
‘What?’ said Les.
As we drove through the city, traffic came to a standstill as Equal Pay For Women protesters marched down Bourke Street.
‘Bloody stupid place for a protest,’ said Les.
‘I think they’re trying to get their message heard, Les,’ I ventured.
‘What?’ said Les.
‘You couldn’t do that in Russia,’ piped up Marika. ‘If you did a protest marches, you would get ten years in Siberia.’ It felt like Siberia in the bus, as Les has an aversion to putting the heater on.
Dad: I don’t know why there’s so much traffic.
Dude: Maybe everyone’s looking for God.
To be allowed to drive the fifteen-seater bus, I had to take a driving test. When I rocked up to the head office, I met my examiner, Dave and we discovered they had forgotten to book us a bus.
‘We could do it in a station wagon,’ said Dave. ‘Anyone got a station wagon?’
‘I have,’ I offered, slightly embarrassed.
‘Good,’ said Dave. ‘We’ll do it in that.’
‘You better not fail a driving test in your own car,’ taunted my mate the CEO.
So, for my bus-driving exam, I drove around the streets of Preston in my family station wagon, pretending it was a bus. Ironically, I drove it just like a nanna and even applied the push-pull steering method at one point. Dave said that I passed with flying colours, although I didn’t tell him that if I were to fly my own colours, it would be a white flag.
My solo bus driving was a pleasant enough experience, the old folk being quite amiable, although one old chap’s health update to a fellow passenger made the driver a little woozy. It involved a stent being inserted into the man’s chest, a pig’s heart valve, and an examination that had to be done through his groin. There were no incidents, although I did notice a few sharp intakes of breath from my passengers as I turned a corner and nearly didn’t allow enough room for such a long vehicle. From the back, I heard a whispered ‘That was close to the pole.’
To provide a bit of luxury service, I put some Second World War-era hit songs on my iPod and made sure I blasted the heater all day.
‘Thank you for the lovely music, Matt,’ said one charming old duck.
‘And thank you for putting the heater on,’ said the rest.
What I enjoyed most about the trips was finally being able to park in the most coveted spots for any driver: bus and disabled zones all over the city. The job’s other bonus is that it’s not very often when you’re nearing fifty years old that you’re referred to as ‘the young man’.
Dude: Why don’t we have two lives? It’s not fair we only get one. That means you’ve only got forty years more. Are you sad?
Matt Quartermaine is a Melbourne-based writer and comedian. With Matt Parkinson, Tim Smith and Andrew Goodone, he produces ‘The Chat’, a weekly podcast in which ‘four grown men in comfortable chairs spill their guts’. Click here to download it for free at iTunes.
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