The Crackhead and the Luxury Baby Carriage

It's a late night on the 7, just at the foot of downtown, 4th and Jackson. A woman with a baby carriage struggles her way on-board. She's wired and skinny, unsettlingly skeletal, with make-up smears on her face.

Her baby carriage is huge and boxy, covered by a canopy, and though it's nearly impossible to see inside, it looks like it's stuffed with blankets. The bus driver shoots up from his chair to help her pull the carriage up the stairs. Even with two people, it's a struggle.

She pays her toll and finds a seat up front, muttering to herself and scratching at her skinny arms. She yanks the baby carriage close to her knees as she sits, and whispers soothing sounds into the small opening. Even her soothing sounds are tense and awkward. "Just a few minutes and then we'll be home. Shhhh. There there. There there."

At this point, I'm thinking what everyone on-board must be thinking. "That poor child." Why was this tragic crackhead wheeling her infant around the streets of the International District in the middle of the night?

And then, the carriage starts to bark.

It's only a few short, chirping barks, and then I see a snout protrude through the small opening of the carriage. "Shhh. Just a few more stops. Shh." She's wheeling around a lapdog in this luxury carriage.

Over the course of the next two or three stops, a few straggling passengers trickle on-board. One of them is an older gentleman who sits across from the wiry woman as she fidgets in her seat, whispering into the carriage. I watch him as he thinks the same thing I originally thought. "That poor child."

At the next stop she gets off, and immediately struggles to pull the carriage down the steps. This time, the bus driver doesn't help, but the gentleman does. When he returns to his seat and the bus pulls away, the driver shoots the man a sideways glance and says, "You know, there was a dog in there."

"A dog? Are you freakin' kidding me?" the man said in between guffaws. "You take it out of that ridiculous carriage and it walks off the bus by its own damn self!"

I have never heard such raucous laughter on the bus. The whole front end erupted, and it lasted all the way uptown.