Jeepers creepers!

Because I do not drive a car, I am a longtime proponent of the bus. Coach Canada bus lines is never dull, due to its fine history of getting people from point A to point B in a rolling biohazard zone. The time two dudes got caught fellating each other just a couple of seats behind me springs to mind, but my trip back to Toronto from Kingston provided a more specifically medical example.

I was just standing beside the bus, waiting to board, the first in a line that consisted of me and some lady. The bus driver came walking out of the terminal, brandishing a large red thermos. "I'll be watching you. I've got my eyes on you," he said to me with a wink. Then he pointed at the label on the big red thermos:

CAUTION: HANDLE WITH CARE
HUMAN EYES PACKED IN GLASS CONTAINERS

Jesus!

"We do this all the time," he said. "Somebody's up in a hospital in Toronto waiting for eyes. Somebody donated their eyes."

Three cheers for organ donor cards and drunk drivers on New Year's Eve! I thought. How many eyes? I wondered. Two, probably, I decided. "Where do you keep them?" I asked.

"Front seat," he said. I wondered if they'd just be rolling around in the seat, ready to fly up and smash against (or through) the windshield if the bus suddenly braked once it hit the heavy holiday traffic around Bowmanville. But as it happened, traffic was light, and another employee of the bus company had the job of going along for the ride, cradling the thermos in his arms and barking over a cell phone to whoever was picking it up next about where they were supposed to meet. The bus was sweltering instead of as close to cryonically cold as possible, which is what I would have expected, so they must have had a lot of confidence in that thermos. It's strange that they'd send organs to be transplanted on the bus, though. I always pictured an ambulance or a helicopter rushing the stuff to the destination as quickly as possible. I didn't picture a bus that only leaves the station according to a set schedule. Again. much confidence in the thermos.

To find out more about eye transplants, you can check out the Eye Bank of Canada's website. (Or you can do as I did only a couple of days before my bus ride and watch the movie Jeepers Creepers. I understand that the last scene in that is pretty much how ophthalmology works.) For more on the thermos, check out the Thermos company's website or your local pre-schooler's lunch box.