My car mysteriously went down with an ailment on Thursday just as I pulled in to pick up my nephew from baseball practice. I kept turning the ignition, and though the battery light went on, it kept clicking, clicking, clicking. My nephew's coach surmised that it was the battery. I thought, well, why would the car radio still be working?

I called my favorite mechanic, Audie's Auto Tech, and within 30 or 40 minutes, a tow truck (Cachola's) pulled my old Corolla westward. My brother made the haul and took my nephew and I home. It was my nephew who got me thinking that maybe it was one of those connections -- one was brownish orange and possibly burnt out. I don't know jack about cars (I scored 18 out of 100 on the Mechanical section of the ASVAB test), so this seemed reasonable enough for me.

The next morning, I checked TheBus schedule and learned that an Express bus runs between UH and Waipahu every 15 minutes. Holy cow. Times have really changed since I took the bus every day in the 1970s and '80s.

So I walked down to Puck's Alley, a good thing for ol' tubby sportswriter. The #32 Express to Waipahu was en route to UH for the turnaround. After a brief respite at Sinclair Circle for the driver (shishi break), we were on our way. It was 2:30 p.m.

One thing good about riding TheBus is you have no choice but to slow down, and boy those potholes on Kapiolani Blvd. emphasize that point. Slowing down also means I got to recognize how much insanely fast construction has gone on in the Kaka'ako area. It's silver-window city now. Quite glitzy.

Soon after that, however, I began to realize that the Express is not a bullet train. In fact, with dozens of stops along the way, I regretted not owning an iPod. Reading on a moving vehicle only makes me nauseous. So I just sat there near the center of this elongated bus, which had that accordion-like section in the middle.

By the time we reached the transit center on Middle Street, it was 3:40. I'd spent more than an hour just getting to Kalihi. I suppose I was getting my money's worth. By 4 o'clock, I was within two blocks of Audie's, and I jumped off the ride. Except for all the rattling, stops and bumps on the road, it was a good ride.

At 2 bucks, it saved me a gallon of gas ($4.25). Riding TheBus is something that I only do when my car is in the shop, and it's something I can live with occasionally. I just feel for the folks who ride it every day to work and to home. Spending 3 hours on the road just to get to work would be mind-numbing for me. Then again, maybe someone out there is sitting on that rattling Express, laptop open, writing the next great novel somewhere between Waipahu and Waikiki.

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