I was responding to a friend on the West Coast who has been a bus driver for BC Transit for the last 25 years and who E Mailed me about his car troubles. (soon to be a thing of the past) I started to answer and this little tale rolled out of my humerous side. I share it with you in the spirit of fun. Hi Greg, Stay tuned for tuned for my next essay titled - "Welcome to the last car you will ever own." Perhaps when it is over, you will invest in a good ten speed and get up an hour earlier to peddle to work. As a senior bus driver, they might even let you drive one of the few remaining diesels. Actually, on reflection, I see a return to the slave galley except it will be with buses. When you get on, you are taken to a seat with pedals, the bus driver (slave driver) will walk up and down the aisle, flogging the passengers to petal harder while his assistant steers the bus. If the bus does not have a full complement of slaves, it may get stalled on slight hills, in which case the bus driver will put in a call and homeowners who live near the hill will have to rush out and jump in the bus to petal. This will greatly lower the price of view property in the British Properties. Bus drivers will be chosen for their ability to inflict pain on passengers through verbal abuse and harrasment. Special training courses at BC Transit will weed out the softies so that the system can function with maximum efficiency. Any passengers who are senior citizens will be given special high gear ratio petals to compensate for their age. The handicapped will not be allowed to ride as there can be no dead weight on the bus which would lower efficiency. Drivers who manage to achieve high speeds from their pedalers will receive achievement rewards. Late night runs will be eliminated due to lack of pedlars. After fifty or so years, Darwinian evolution will kick in and children will be born with overdeveloped legs, which will become a sign of beauty, reflecting increased survival capabilities. With a corresponding decrease in head size and and upper body weight, humans will truly sink closer to the ground. Lucien Bouchard and his descendants who come from voyager stock will be the new patron saints and claiming direct lineage will guarantee the lowest gear ratio seats to this worthy breed of people. People who need hip replacements will be warehoused as unproductive. Women will become the dominant species having larger thighs and less upper body weight. Small breast size will be in along with narrow shoulders and short hair. If we invest now in pedal buses, already on the drawing boards of GM, though classified as highly secret, we may become wealthy enough to afford a surrogate pedlar to do our work. Bicycles built for two will become the sign of wealth with an overly developed pedlar conveying the idle rich throughout the countryside. Rickshaws will become a dominant career option with courses being offered at our leading high tech universities to develop three wheeled rickshaws to handle the parking problem. Mike Harris will be hailed as the Winston Churchill of the year 2000 for his pioneering work on developing "workfare" slaves to substitute as a cost effective solution for the lack of petroleum. Welcome to the future.
