My bike had a flat tire just as I was getting ready to go to work. I couldn't find the leak and didn't have time to fiddle with it. So I had to rely on public transit also known as the bus
Looking at my watch told me it was a little after three, normally I could leave around 3:10 pm and be at work by about 3:50 pm, a trip of roughly 35 or 45 minutes. Walking five minutes took me to the bus stop where people were camped out waiting for the green bus to arrive. "When does the bus come?" I asked someone who looked sober and English speaking. "It is late." I am afraid I did not receive this information well, but as uncertainties began to haunt my mind a distant rumble warned of an approaching bus. It stopped at the cub and I witnessed with concern as people flung themselves from it in gratitude as they sought the safety of immovable soil. I wondered why so few of those who had been waiting for the bus stood still not getting on. Braving my safety I put my head gingerly inside the folding door contraption and asked if he was going to, Kings Contrivance shopping center. "Nope you want the green bus, it takes you to the mall where you catch the brown bus to Kings Contrivance. I am going to Laurel." "When will the green arrive?" I asked. "It's late." The driver said. I returned to the spot where I wait trying to look like I belonged. The smell of the cigarette smokers was really bothering me. They were standing in a small group creating a white cancerous cloud that drifted my way.
At last the rumbling grinding noise of the green bus could be heard. It remained far away for a long time. Everyone was watching as it came a few feet and then stopped and then it sputtered forward a few more feet and stopped again. At last the driver found his mark and stopped at last a mere twenty feet away. The riders took the last puffs of cigarette and looked the bus over. With dubious confidence we climbed the steps. It was already 3:30 and I was just getting on the bus.
The bus wound its way through neighborhoods for no apparent reason. On occasion it would stop and pick up a passenger or let one off. The distance from the shopping center to the hub where I would catch the next bus was about two miles in a straight line on a map. In the world of bus transit there is no such thing as a straight line and the meandering route clocked at least twice that. In only twenty five minutes the bus arrived at the mall where all the buses in town meet for donuts and cigarettes. Any who were left on the bus departed to wait in a row of acrylic bench filled huts that lined the sidewalk. The apparent policy is that having discharged its passengers the bus would rolled forward to a little convention where the bus drivers stood around taking the union mandated fifteen minute brake. I wonder if they don't get one break an hour.
I checked the charts and maps posted on the acrylic huts to determine when the next bus would depart to my hopeful destination. It was my expectation that the bus system ran frequent and convenient routs. The truth of the matter was that the buses depart hourly. My next bus, the brown, would depart in about an hour! I would be late for work before I even got on the bus. For an hour I sat and watched the clouds drift by in the sky, the cars roll up the street, the other would be passengers smoke more cigarettes and the kids scream while they play in the sidewalk.
At long last the brown bus arrived. I was about to leap on when the driver advised me that he would be leaving in fifteen minutes after his break. My blood pressure was about to give me an aneurysm the time was almost five o:clock.
Finally after a long fifteen minutes the driver admitted us unfortunates and began his rumble around town. If one was to draw a straight line from the bus hub to the shopping center it would have measured about four miles but those politicians and city planners who design bus routes are not knowledgeable of straight lines. On this bus ride I saw parts of town I never knew existed and never want to see again. We rolled back and forth; one stop was in a random parking lot of a hotel, one stop was in front of a clinic and later the bus returned to stop on the other side of the clinic. It went up a street to make a stop that was a five minute walk from the shopping center where I caught the green bus. It meandered to a construction site, a cemetery and a church, (this I did not understand since it was Wednesday and this church had no services on Wednesday, besides which the bus doesn't run on Sunday when the church does have services). At one stop the bus parked for five minutes because apparently it had as spasm of efficiency and was ahead of schedule. The bus went one way up an industrial park and then back down the other side of the street in the same industrial park. At last I could see the shopping center where I worked at a grocery store. My blood pressure was begging to return to safe levels when the bus turned and went up another side street to wait a minute across the street from the fire station- perhaps the firemen take the bus to fight fires? The bus made another stop at a school then at last pulled into the back parking lot of the shopping center; where the driver parked at a pole marked with a sign that said brown.
The exhausted passengers leapt to safety, relieved to arrive before daylight savings time. A look at my watch told the time to be 5:50. I was almost two hours late. Taking the bus took almost two and a half hours when I could have ridden my bicycle to work in less than forty minutes. I really have to fix the tire on my bike.
Looking at my watch told me it was a little after three, normally I could leave around 3:10 pm and be at work by about 3:50 pm, a trip of roughly 35 or 45 minutes. Walking five minutes took me to the bus stop where people were camped out waiting for the green bus to arrive. "When does the bus come?" I asked someone who looked sober and English speaking. "It is late." I am afraid I did not receive this information well, but as uncertainties began to haunt my mind a distant rumble warned of an approaching bus. It stopped at the cub and I witnessed with concern as people flung themselves from it in gratitude as they sought the safety of immovable soil. I wondered why so few of those who had been waiting for the bus stood still not getting on. Braving my safety I put my head gingerly inside the folding door contraption and asked if he was going to, Kings Contrivance shopping center. "Nope you want the green bus, it takes you to the mall where you catch the brown bus to Kings Contrivance. I am going to Laurel." "When will the green arrive?" I asked. "It's late." The driver said. I returned to the spot where I wait trying to look like I belonged. The smell of the cigarette smokers was really bothering me. They were standing in a small group creating a white cancerous cloud that drifted my way.
At last the rumbling grinding noise of the green bus could be heard. It remained far away for a long time. Everyone was watching as it came a few feet and then stopped and then it sputtered forward a few more feet and stopped again. At last the driver found his mark and stopped at last a mere twenty feet away. The riders took the last puffs of cigarette and looked the bus over. With dubious confidence we climbed the steps. It was already 3:30 and I was just getting on the bus.
The bus wound its way through neighborhoods for no apparent reason. On occasion it would stop and pick up a passenger or let one off. The distance from the shopping center to the hub where I would catch the next bus was about two miles in a straight line on a map. In the world of bus transit there is no such thing as a straight line and the meandering route clocked at least twice that. In only twenty five minutes the bus arrived at the mall where all the buses in town meet for donuts and cigarettes. Any who were left on the bus departed to wait in a row of acrylic bench filled huts that lined the sidewalk. The apparent policy is that having discharged its passengers the bus would rolled forward to a little convention where the bus drivers stood around taking the union mandated fifteen minute brake. I wonder if they don't get one break an hour.
I checked the charts and maps posted on the acrylic huts to determine when the next bus would depart to my hopeful destination. It was my expectation that the bus system ran frequent and convenient routs. The truth of the matter was that the buses depart hourly. My next bus, the brown, would depart in about an hour! I would be late for work before I even got on the bus. For an hour I sat and watched the clouds drift by in the sky, the cars roll up the street, the other would be passengers smoke more cigarettes and the kids scream while they play in the sidewalk.
At long last the brown bus arrived. I was about to leap on when the driver advised me that he would be leaving in fifteen minutes after his break. My blood pressure was about to give me an aneurysm the time was almost five o:clock.
Finally after a long fifteen minutes the driver admitted us unfortunates and began his rumble around town. If one was to draw a straight line from the bus hub to the shopping center it would have measured about four miles but those politicians and city planners who design bus routes are not knowledgeable of straight lines. On this bus ride I saw parts of town I never knew existed and never want to see again. We rolled back and forth; one stop was in a random parking lot of a hotel, one stop was in front of a clinic and later the bus returned to stop on the other side of the clinic. It went up a street to make a stop that was a five minute walk from the shopping center where I caught the green bus. It meandered to a construction site, a cemetery and a church, (this I did not understand since it was Wednesday and this church had no services on Wednesday, besides which the bus doesn't run on Sunday when the church does have services). At one stop the bus parked for five minutes because apparently it had as spasm of efficiency and was ahead of schedule. The bus went one way up an industrial park and then back down the other side of the street in the same industrial park. At last I could see the shopping center where I worked at a grocery store. My blood pressure was begging to return to safe levels when the bus turned and went up another side street to wait a minute across the street from the fire station- perhaps the firemen take the bus to fight fires? The bus made another stop at a school then at last pulled into the back parking lot of the shopping center; where the driver parked at a pole marked with a sign that said brown.
The exhausted passengers leapt to safety, relieved to arrive before daylight savings time. A look at my watch told the time to be 5:50. I was almost two hours late. Taking the bus took almost two and a half hours when I could have ridden my bicycle to work in less than forty minutes. I really have to fix the tire on my bike.
