Every now and then, for no apparent reason, bus rides turn in horrible ordeals. Tonight was one such night. My Route 14 was supposed to pick us up at 6th and Nic at 5:40. At 5:50 we were still waiting there with no sign of a 14 anywhere.
When a bus is this late it's usually bad news - something went wrong and now the driver is off schedule and crabby, the bus is often full to capacity and most of passengers will be cranky. What's more, with all those people on the bus, inevitably you end up stopping at every stop along the way, which makes the whole situation steadily worse rather than better.
Because the bus was so late, a suspiciously friendly stoner girl's transfer expired while we were waiting, but lucky for her she had time to work the crowd to drum up some coin for the fair (If I ever see you again, you owe a dollar, Tess from Texas). When the bus finally arrived, I could immediately tell what the problem was - our driver was cautious to a fault. I am no fan of careening around South Minneapolis on a run-away bus, but at some level that's better than crawling home. As we lurched and bumped our way out of downtown we were passed by another 14. Yes - we had been caught, and passed, but the bus behind us.
I made it home about 45 minutes later than when I should have gotten home (it's a 30 minute ride). When we finally arrived at my stop, I thanked the driver and stepped off the bus, immediately slipping on the ice and going face-down like a bag of hammers for the first time this winter. A fitting end to my ride on the bus of the damned.
Do they make Nokian boots?
ReplyDeleteBummer about the ride. I have the opposite problem -- I'm trying to transfer to a bus that always leaves the stop early causing me to take a much longer route home.