Tooth-Grinding Buses
This morning was not a good one for me; well it wasn't an entirely bad one, but it was still very irritating as well as time-and-money-wasting...
You see, my church has this shuttle bus that leaves a certain bus interchange at 8.40am, which behooves me to take an 8.15 bus from the nearest bus stop to the interchange (it's a fifteen-minute ride) and then wait the ten minutes until the shuttle turns up. Generally I make it on time; in the past year I've only missed the bus two or three times and even then it was my fault for waking late.
Today, on the other hand, it wasn't my fault. I woke at 7, was at the bus stop by 8.10... and remained there until 8.30 when a tiny little thing trundled around. By my conjecture the bus company decided that this route brings in too little revenue, and they seem to have reduced the frequency of the buses without having the courtesy to say so--and heck, the frequency as it was, was low enough already! There are two bus routes in the University, and the less-frequent one (the one I'm on) is about one-third the frequency of the other. I regularly see three of the other buses leave the interchange (all chock-full I might add) before mine comes around... and now it seems they've gone and reduced it further without so much as a by-your-leave. What's more, that bus was carrying two loads of people (the 8.15 crowd and the 8.30 crowd) and was a single-storey bus, which effectively meant it was crammed to the point where people absolutely had to disobey the no-standing-on-steps rule or risk waiting for the next bus.
Enraging, because by the time I arrived at the place where the shuttle bus usually comes to, I found it absolutely devoid of human life (there were plenty of crows/pigeons/whatever those little bedraggled gray-black things are) and had to take a public bus to the church, which is annoying (and slow). But this wasn't all the public bus's fault, because it went extra fast and I arrived at 8.40am--to find the bus not there, which means that the shuttle bus driver must have arrived early and left early, probably so he could rush back home and have a good snooze or something. The only thing more aggravating than a late bus (which eventually arrives) is a bus that arrives and departs early (because arriving on time now becomes pretty stupid). I ground my teeth then and went in search of a public bus.
Two bus routes pass by the church, neither of them particularly popular amongst the general populace and thus both are quite infrequent. I dithered between queues until I saw one coming and hopped on it; but between the late arrival of the public bus and the early departure of the shuttle (I was, at that moment, dreaming up creative ways to take the drivers, hang them upside down, and flay them from toes to crown while industrial-strength fans blew freezing air from one side and steam from another and a giant saltshaker was positioned over their heads to intermittently season them), I was so irritated that I was quite lost to the mundane world and missed my stop... which, of course, meant I had to return to the interchange and take the other bus, which meant a 40-minute joyride and a bit of wasted money.
As it was, when people asked how I was after church, the best I could say was "so-so"; "infuriated" or "raging" are simply not the kind of answers one gives people to that sort of question.
You see, my church has this shuttle bus that leaves a certain bus interchange at 8.40am, which behooves me to take an 8.15 bus from the nearest bus stop to the interchange (it's a fifteen-minute ride) and then wait the ten minutes until the shuttle turns up. Generally I make it on time; in the past year I've only missed the bus two or three times and even then it was my fault for waking late.
Today, on the other hand, it wasn't my fault. I woke at 7, was at the bus stop by 8.10... and remained there until 8.30 when a tiny little thing trundled around. By my conjecture the bus company decided that this route brings in too little revenue, and they seem to have reduced the frequency of the buses without having the courtesy to say so--and heck, the frequency as it was, was low enough already! There are two bus routes in the University, and the less-frequent one (the one I'm on) is about one-third the frequency of the other. I regularly see three of the other buses leave the interchange (all chock-full I might add) before mine comes around... and now it seems they've gone and reduced it further without so much as a by-your-leave. What's more, that bus was carrying two loads of people (the 8.15 crowd and the 8.30 crowd) and was a single-storey bus, which effectively meant it was crammed to the point where people absolutely had to disobey the no-standing-on-steps rule or risk waiting for the next bus.
Enraging, because by the time I arrived at the place where the shuttle bus usually comes to, I found it absolutely devoid of human life (there were plenty of crows/pigeons/whatever those little bedraggled gray-black things are) and had to take a public bus to the church, which is annoying (and slow). But this wasn't all the public bus's fault, because it went extra fast and I arrived at 8.40am--to find the bus not there, which means that the shuttle bus driver must have arrived early and left early, probably so he could rush back home and have a good snooze or something. The only thing more aggravating than a late bus (which eventually arrives) is a bus that arrives and departs early (because arriving on time now becomes pretty stupid). I ground my teeth then and went in search of a public bus.
Two bus routes pass by the church, neither of them particularly popular amongst the general populace and thus both are quite infrequent. I dithered between queues until I saw one coming and hopped on it; but between the late arrival of the public bus and the early departure of the shuttle (I was, at that moment, dreaming up creative ways to take the drivers, hang them upside down, and flay them from toes to crown while industrial-strength fans blew freezing air from one side and steam from another and a giant saltshaker was positioned over their heads to intermittently season them), I was so irritated that I was quite lost to the mundane world and missed my stop... which, of course, meant I had to return to the interchange and take the other bus, which meant a 40-minute joyride and a bit of wasted money.
As it was, when people asked how I was after church, the best I could say was "so-so"; "infuriated" or "raging" are simply not the kind of answers one gives people to that sort of question.
Comments
relax ah bro.