It was a day of spotty, off-and-on rain showers. I checked the forecast and radar online throughout the afternoon and concluded I had a window of opportunity perfectly suited for a damp but not miserable bus ride.
I also had the handy DoubleMap app on my iPhone. It shows a map of the city, with GPS identifying my current location. A map of the bus routes overlays the city map, with GPS providing a moving marker for each of the busses' current location.
Armed with such impressive technology pinpointing the rain systems and the approaching bus, as well as my old-tech umbrella, I was prepared to venture forth.
There was no more than a very faint mist when it came time leave work, and I timed my exit from the building to arrive at the bus stop just when the bus came into view a block away, so I boarded with no problems.
During the 10 minute trip from work to my transfer stop I enjoyed the luxury of watching out the windows, studying the rush hour traffic as it moved through the slowly increasing rain. The headlights and taillights, along with their reflection off the wet pavement, danced in contrast to the grey shades of the afternoon.
Arriving at the transfer stop, I noted on the DoubleMap app that the #5 Blue bus was still at least 20 minutes away. Probably more, in this weather.
The best thing about that transfer stop is that it's located directly in from of the Womens and Childrens Hospital, part of the university where I work. So I walked through the mizzle (a cross between mist and drizzle) and made myself at home inside the building for awhile.
When the GPS showed me the bus was about to turn onto far end of the street out front, I gathered my things and headed back outside. By this time, the rain was definitely a drizzle, threatening to actually earn the title of rain. I tugged my ball cap down over my glasses and quickly made my way to the plexiglass-enclosed bus shelter.
A young woman was waiting in the shelter. As I entered, she smiled and said, "You waiting for the bus?" I hesitated, fighting back the urge to say something like, "No, I thought this was the elevator."
"It's going to be here really, really soon!" she told me, enthusiastically. Then she saw me looking at my phone, and she said, "Oh, are you tracking it, too?"
We talked about the handy phone app for a minute, as the rain beat more insistently on the shelter. We both looked up from our phones and exactly the same moment, expecting to see the bus pop over the hill two blocks south.
We waited. We looked back at our phones. We waited.
"It must have stopped at that retirement place up there," I offered.
"Probably," she agreed. "Slow people getting on or off."
While we were talking, the bus appeared on the horizon. She moved to gather her backpack from the bench while I moved to pocket my phone and get out my transfer pass.
We stepped out of the shelter toward the bus stop sign. The bus never slowed, never braked, never stopped. It rolled past us like a blue whale chasing down a school of plankton.
"You have got to be kidding me!" my fellow bus non-rider yelled, and began to walk furiously after the bus. I watched her go, wondering if she thought she would catch it. I suppose she thought perhaps it would stop at the next bus stop a bloc and a half away, for perhaps another slow boarder.
Perhaps she didn't have a logical reason, other than an urgent wish to yell at the bus driver.
I stepped back into the shelter and began calling the bus dispatch center as I watched her stop and turn back. When she got back to the shelter, she looked up the phone number on the bus schedule hanging on the shelter wall, and began tapping it in on her phone.
For a minute or two we stood there, talking to two different people at dispatch, expressing our displeasure at having been left standing in the rain. When we compared notes, we found we had both received the same answer:
I'm so sorry that happened. The bus will be back at that stop in about 45 minutes... No, there's nothing else I can do about it... I 'm sorry for your inconvenience.I began to call my wife, to see when she would be nearby to come pick me up. While I waited for he to answer, my fellow stranded non-passenger stormed off toward the hospital's entrance.
As it turned out, my wife was just 5 minutes away. I headed into the hospital to see if the young lady wanted a ride to wherever she was headed, but she had disappeared.
Another victim of the bus rider's blues.
***
Post script: I should note that the bus folks sent me a pass with 10 free rides to compensate for my troubles. Kudos to them.
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