The bus should be seen, not heard.

There was a new technological marvel on the bus I take to work this morning. The M31 now announces, in a quasi-pleasant but slightly insistent voice, the intersection of the next stop and whenever anyone requests a stop. Chicago buses all have these "features," but after a month away, I realized how annoying the announcements are. Granted, it may be useful for tourists (who must be incapable of looking out of the window) to know where they are. But tourists never take the bus - the alphanumeric route designations send them running for the trains, where they inevitably spend hours at Union Square asking anyone who looks like they may stop where to find the "green line."

The bottom line: Last night, I sent an awful lot of booze to land on not all that much finger food. As a result, my tolerance for hearing the voice of what sounds like a constipated customer service operator say "stop requested" was reached about 3 minutes into the trip.