A Long Time Ago, in a State Far Far Away, Great Stupidity Took Place.

A long time ago, really it was, in a state far far away, stupidity took place.

I am not sure what it is about the male psyche, but the whole competitive thing is still something I can’t say I totally get. What I mean by “get” is I don’t recognize that I am a competitive person. I think I view competitive as the dude that is a total ‘jock’ and has to be the best, first, fastest, quickest, strongest etc. I find myself from time to time, sitting at a stop light, for no reason I can point to, ready to get to the next light faster than anyone else, but this is rare.  Ask my friend and boss, who is a “Fitbit” and “Runkeeper” buddy. I am always looking at his daily total steps and miles to make sure I am in the lead. (though I’m not always ahead of him…)  Sometimes I am checking hourly!  

So it was a long time ago… I was in my 20’s and singing in my college’s traveling choir. We would take the weekends and Spring Breaks to travel to the surrounding towns and sing in churches that invited us.

During one Spring Break we rented a large Trailways Silver Eagle bus. This was a 50,000 lbs, 40 foot long, huge bus. I was allowed to drive it as a relief driver when the coach driver that came with the bus needed a break. I loved driving this huge machine and it was probably one of the easiest, most comfortable vehicles to drive I had ever been in. I also loved the horn. There was just something magical about pulling the cord down, hearing the air horns blast and watching traffic part, like the Red Sea parted for Moses!  

Anyway, I brought us into Cape Coral Florida one Spring afternoon. The group was going to go ‘shopping’, which is something I absolutely abhor. I would much rather stay with the bus anyway. Call it childish, but I really enjoyed just sitting behind the wheel. It gave me a feeling of importance and power and I just loved playing with all of those gizmos. (Fortunately there wasn’t any landing gear to retract!) See https://jeffkennon.com/how-i-became-famous-anonymously/

This bus had the coolest doors! They parted in the middle to open and allow passengers in and out. It was literally two door halves that came together in the middle. They were powered by pneumatics (air) just like the brakes systems on the bus, and on large trucks. There was a 3 inch metal toggle switch to the left of the massive steering wheel. Just like a little kid I would sit alone in the bus, hit the switch, watch the doors open with a titanic ‘whoosh’, then hit the switch for the finale, of ‘whoosh’ as the doors slammed closed.

It was ‘Amazing’ and ‘Fun’ and, it was like pouring gasoline on a open flame!

The way we locked the bus, was to get out, walk around to the drivers side, open the small slide window, reach in, flip the switch, and ‘bam’ the doors would close, then off we went. I mean, it was 50,000 lbs of going nowhere without the keys so we never worried about it being stolen.  

So on this fateful day, the team had left and I had parked the bus in the far back of a mall parking lot. I had this bored ‘looking for a thrill’ thing going on, and as I sat in the driver seat, I started flipping the switch to open and close the doors. By the 10th time this didn’t satisfy my needs, so I started timing how long it took for the doors to slam shut from the time I hit the toggle switch.

Flip! 1,2,3, ‘BAM’. The doors, which had a large rubber gasket on both pieces clamped shut like crushing sounds and speeds from a Star Wars movie. .

“3 seconds… huh”…and my brain was thinking of things that happen in 3 seconds. The team had been away about 40 minutes and I didn’t expect them to be much longer.

3 seconds kept ringing in my head. You know how some people have good voices and bad voices in their heads?

Well, I have a smart voice and a stupid voice! (Some would question if the smart voice is really ‘smart’, but that is debatable!) Clearly, this was a ‘stupid’ voice talking to me now, because the words were so clear.

“I bet you are fast enough that you can jump through those clam shells doors before they close.”

“Yea, I bet I am,” and off charged me and my stupid voice, to come up with the actual plan.

So, when you are on the landing, beside the steering wheel, you had to step 3 steps down to get to the doors themselves. Total distance, 4 feet or so.

The trick was to stand in the middle of the landing area in the bus, by the steering wheel,  reach over, flip the switch and dive through the doors before they close. I needed to be scientific about this so I did a few practice runs right up to the face of the door and I still had time to get out.

My friend ‘boredom’ was long gone, along with ‘lack of activity’ and clearly, ‘lack of common sense’. So the time came where I was ready.

Just spring like a cheetah…

1… 2… 3… I flipped the switch, dove has hard as I could and was literally in mid air, mid way through the doors when ‘mr gasket’ (the door), the bridge of my mirrored sunglasses, chest, left arm, and left leg were ‘captured, held, lovingly CRUSHED in a second. If this machine was a woman she had a vengeance. The phrase ‘Hell has hath no fury like a woman scorned,’ came to my mind as I wondered how quickly death would come. My mirrored sunglasses folded like butterfly wings! I was able to pull my head out of the doors so most of me was inside the bus.

Assessment time – okay, my left arm at the shoulder and left leg, at the thigh, was on the outside, the rest was on the inside. My head hurt and my glasses were on the floor bent in half and I had a welt on my forehead that was talking to me. The pressure on my arm and leg meant they both were going numb, which at the moment was the least of my concerns.

So here is the image…my right leg is on the floorboard of the first step in the bus entry.My head and ¾ of my torsal is on the inside and from the left shoulder and then from my thigh down is hanging out.

The pain was pretty intense but the most important thing to me was the realization that I was stuck and had purposely parked the bus away from EVERYONE. That was good and that was bad. The good… I was alone in this completely stupid, foolish, ridiculous situation.

The bad… I was going to loose my left arm and leg for no reason at all except pure, unadulterated stupidity! And the worst of it… the bus was faster than me!

There was a small amount of panic starting to set in when I noticed a car parking behind the bus. Since my head and body were facing backwards I could see the car park, door open and the lady get out. I was praying she would walk to the other side of the bus and not noticed my arm and leg however, call it Karma or whatever, she came up the 40 feet on the passenger side of the bus. I could see that she had her head down till she was about 15 feet away from my appendages. ‘What to do, what to do?’

I didn’t know, so I just let my arm and leg go totally limp and blow gently in the wind. She looked up, saw my arm and leg sticking out the door, undulating back and forth, slowed her pace and took a long look through the glass at me. I made eye contact with her and nodded like ‘all was well’.

I said, “How are you doing?” Yea, that was stupid….

She moved away and around the parts of me sticking out like I was a disease but kept moving. It was clear she had no idea what to say or do, and wasn’t going to stick around. I was beginning to really think I was in trouble when my right hand, which was on the inside of the bus, bumped over a valve built into the wall of the exit part of the doorway. As it ended up, this was a relief valve. Moving it from top to bottom released the air pressure and the doors slide open. Of course this dumped me into the parking lot but I figured this position was much less humiliating than the previous proposition.

When the team arrived from their ‘adventure’ of shopping, which was about two minutes after I landed in the parking lot, everyone wanted to know what the welt was on my head. Eventually the story got out and became a sort of tribal myth. Every church we went to after that would end up hearing of the great bus door competition.

I wish I could say this was the end of stupidity in my life, but sadly this wasn’t the last time I listened to the voice of stupid.

More to come and safe journey’s on your road.