Mass transit menace Darius McCollum racked up his 27th arrest in three decades Tuesday by taking a Trailways coach on a cross-state joyride.

The 45-year-old transportation-obsessed oddball went from the driver’s seat to a holding cell after cops caught him with the hot wheels in Queens.

“I’ll bet they won’t leave the keys in the ignition,” McCollum told the arresting officer. “I’ll bet they’ll be more careful now.”…

No one was hurt and the bus was in tiptop condition. That’s how it’s been in every McCollum escapade since he commandeered an E train and drove to the World Trade Center in 1981 when he was just 15.

– New York Daily News.

This guy pops up every few years and every time it’s something like this: He impersonates a mass-transit employee, gets on some mode of mass transportation (or, once, in a control tower), operates some piece of machinery safely and effectively for a while until someone finds him out, then cooperates with the arresting officers. It’s a whimsical story, but he’s hardly a menace.

McCollum has Asperger Syndrome, which explains the fixation with mass transit — not that trains aren’t sweet and all. I worked with a few kids with the disorder when I was TAing in the high school. I’m hardly an expert on the subject, but I think it’s a hard one for even the experts to figure out.

Anyway, if I ever make a ton of money, I’d like to start a charity called the Awesome Fund. Basically, it would raise money to benefit people who do awesome things then need money to cover their legal fees because their awesome actions were illegal, like the JetBlue flight attendant beer bailout guy for example. Plus it would benefit other awesome people who hadn’t done anything illegal but were down on their luck. Also, it would work to raise awareness of general awesomeness.

I’m not sure that Darius McCollum needs money, but I think the ability to effectively impersonate mass-transit employees and safely operate complicated 15-ton machinery for no other reason than that you like trains and buses and you think it seems like fun is pretty damn awesome. And you know what? I don’t even think that makes you an “oddball,” just a guy with a dream and a series of well-thought-out plans.