Lost in Los Gatos

If you spent any time with me in the past couple of years you will have doubtless been treated to my diatribe on how, thanks to GPS, my children will have no cognizance of their geographic location whatsoever and how my wife became total GPS dependent within 6 weeks of owning her new car. So I won't repeat myself, but tell you instead about my bus trip home from the coffee shop yesterday...

My car was in the shop and so I elected to end my work day downtown with a nice cappuccino and the company of other telecommuters in the Great Bear cafe. I decided to take the Los Gatos Community Bus from downtown to a stop 10 minutes walk from my house. The community buses have now been running for a couple years and provide two routes to the light rail center in Campbell the next town. They follow two routes; one down the West and one down the East side of the town.

The previous time I took the bus, I wanted to pass the garage where my car was getting new tires on the West side of town so I asked the driver in Engish English (it being a bus and all, I got carried away) "Do you go down Wincheseter?" which meant "Do you go to the the Winchester Transit Station via Winchester Boulevard?" but was translated by the driver as "Do you go to the the Winchester Transit Station?" which of course both buses do and I consequently ended up on the wrong bus on the wrong side of town.

This time I thought I would be more clever and asked the driver in my best approximation of American "Does this bus go on Los Gatos Boulevard route?" being careful to say "ROWT"
"I've got no idea." the driver replied.
Fearing something was again being lost in translation I tried again...
"Do you go on the Los Gatos Boulevard route to get to the Winchester Transit Station?"
"I dunno man. Maybe. I just drive the bus to the Transit Station."

At this point I began to wonder if I had stumbled on an elaborate birthday prank and the man sitting behind the wheel of the bus was perhaps a male stripper cleverly disguised in the uniform of the Valley Transport Authority operative, readying himself to pounce on some unsuspecting middle aged businessman, jeered on by the passengers who would suddenly all turn out to be his best friends (apart from me).

"I just drive the bus" the now very suspect man in the front seat mumbled.

Another thought struck me: It was a pretty empty bus, perhaps one chosen for the least number of passengers that could put up a fight. Had the driver completed all his training or had he just focussed on starting it up, going forward, accelerating and driving into buildings? Was this bus really going to the transit center or was it going out in a "blaze of glory" at some other ultimate very public destination.

I snapped out of it in time to see object of my fantasies pointing at a large grey/gray box to the right of the ticket machine. "This tells me where to go. I just drive the bus."

So now even bus driving had been dumbed down by technology. To be a bus driver in Silicon Valley you didn't need to know where you were going or how you were getting there, you just had to be able to drive! However, when we overshot my stop by 200 yards and screetched to a halt, narrowly missing a parked car I wondered just how far down the list of Previous Experience being able to drive actually was on the job description.