Hop on the bus, Gus

11/4/2026

The clear, cold water in my basement actually has a current. I wade in, slipping on the painted concrete. Hmmm … is it low tide or high tide? It’s certainly past my ankles. Two sump pumps are working at either end of the basement, pulling the water up and out the hoses going through the partially open window. The pumps are not winning.

So, I dip buckets into the water and carry them up the wet basement stairs, out the back door, and then toss them downhill, away from the house and into the rain. My youngest daughter helps me fill the buckets. She’s changed into a bikini — an outfit that does not inspire confidence.

I imagine the water I’m tossing outside is sinking deep into the ground and then somehow flowing back to the house and eventually finding itself back in the basement. Home at last.

I dip my bucket. I empty it outside. And I do it all again and again and again.

Listen, sometimes we just can’t get off the bus. We want to. We’re headed in one direction, blowing past stop after stop, and we decide, for whatever reason, that’s enough of that, and we would like to get off. But we can’t because the rain keeps coming and my basement keeps leaking. And to give up control to my bikini-clad daughter isn’t an option. I’m stuck in my basement hauling water for what feels like the rest of my life.

I’m stuck on the bus. 

This sense that you are stuck by time and circumstances is not novel. Take old age for instance. I’m an old man. Being an old man is not a bad gig. Generally I pretend I don’t care what people think. I dress in baggy pants and old T-shirts. And I watch romance movies and drink coffee. See, not bad.

But I know how this aging racket works. I’m going to get even older. Yup, it’s true. I’m going to be unwell at some point. And if I’m lucky, I’ll end up with some nice person encouraging me to take my pills and explaining that I can’t watch “Notting Hill” yet another time.

No shame in any of that. But really, sometimes I’d like to get off the old-age bus. It’s certainly interesting, but I’d like to try something else. Maybe something where you wake up doing a cartwheel rather than seeing if all your body parts made it through the night. That doesn’t seem too much to ask.

But I can’t get off the bus. I am stuck by time and circumstances. Which gets us to the point. 

We are now facing multiple crises — out-of-control Artificial Intelligence, climate disasters and nuclear threat. 

There is an urge to ignore these problems. Some of us want to get off the bus by going back to another time when it was all easier and cleaner and simpler. But, sorry, there was no such time. History is chock full of plagues and wars and cruelty and starvation and persecution. There were no simpler times. There are just other times with their own serious challenges.

OK. But how about if we get off the bus by blaming someone else for our predicament, like immigrants, public school teachers or transgender people?

Really? 

Obviously, blaming others does nothing to address extreme weather conditions, or rogue AI, or nukes around every corner. I’m sorry. We can’t get off this those buses. These problems, like old age and a flooding basement, are not going away by putting our head in the sand.

In 1942, Albert Camus wrote an essay called “The Myth of Sisyphus.” Sisyphus was the guy that the gods made roll a rock up a mountain, only to have it roll back down. Then he had to roll the rock up again. And back down it went. For eternity.

Talk about not being able to get off the bus. Sisyphus is the poster child.

But Camus argues that even in that context, Sisyphus is free. Camus says that it’s when Sisyphus goes back down the mountain that he is more than his fate.

“At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.”

Really? But what about going up the mountain again?

Camus says, “These are our night of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged.”

In other words, we have to face the “crushing truths” of AI, climate change, and nuclear proliferation. They aren’t going anywhere. No matter what, we are going to have to push them up the mountain. If we don’t acknowledge them, if we pretend they are not problems, then we can’t decide our fate in regard to each of them. They are the bus we’re on. Realizing our predicament is the first step to a solution. We can shoulder them up the mountain, and then we can think of solutions on our way down. But we have to know what rock we are pushing up.

So … “hop on the bus, Gus,” as Paul Simon sings, “And get yourself free.” ♦

Joe Weeg spent 31 years bumping around this town as a prosecutor for the Polk County Attorney’s Office. Now retired, he writes about the frequently overlooked people, places and events in Des Moines on his blog: www.joesneighborhood.com.