When it rains it pours

Dear readers ... if you're still out there ... sorry, it has been a while. A combination of lack of truly notable travesties and laziness on my part has resulted in a year and a half of blog silence. Ok, let's be honest, it's mostly laziness, because even though I have a relatively short quiet commute to and from school most days, there is always someone doing something wrong on transit.

So after months of minor infractions not worthy of my effort to write about, this week there were two travesties that I could no longer ignore.

Travesty the first:
It was Monday. For some reason the Pacific Northwest is trying to mimic actual winter this year, so for not the first time this season, I woke up to snow. It was coming down quite heavily near my apartment, though not enough to cancel school. So I hop on the bus and don't think too much of it when we make a small detour, the purpose of which, I assume, was to avoid a short but steep hill at the beginning of the route which was probably quite slippery in the wet snow.

That should have been my clue that this ride was going to end poorly for me. But I blissfully ignored that warning sign and zoned out as usual for the next half an hour of my ride.

Then we reached the last stop before campus. And the driver makes an announcement, "Just so you know, we are on snow route detours around campus today." And that was it. No information about what this route might be and how far from my stop I was about to end up. And for that matter, no justification for why we were making a snow detour when it was now raining and there was no snow on the roads by campus at all. Of course, it meant exactly what I feared it meant ... instead of turning up the hill towards campus and my office, we went straight down around the bottom of the hill. Someone pulled the stop cord, and when the bus came to its first stop near the university gym, there was a strange delay while people looked around trying to decide if they should get off or just stay on the ride and see where they ended up. I got off because we were already well past my office and only getting farther from there. Eventually many people decided to do the same.

So now instead of being dropped right in front of my office, I have to schlep my butt up a bajillion stairs first thing in the morning in the almost freezing drizzle as well as back track around the main campus road back to my office building. Awesome. Especially awesome when the only reason I take this bus, whose route is about 10 minutes longer than the other bus to campus that comes by my apartment, is exactly because I DON'T HAVE TO WALK 10 MINUTES ACROSS CAMPUS FROM THE BUS TO MY OFFICE. So now I've wasted 10 minutes and an uphill walk. Swell.

Travesty the second:
It's almost the end of the quarter. So I'm tired, frustrated with my students and my own work, I'm ready for a vacation and I'm perpetually on edge with no patience left. I say this because this particular type of incident has happened many times during these months of blog silence, but this morning it was the straw that broke the camel's back. So here it is ...

The city bus is NOT a tour bus. Announcements by the driver should be reserved for emergencies only. It's 8 o'clock in the morning; I haven't had my coffee yet; I'm trying to zone out, listen to my music and psych myself up for the day. I do not need this process interrupted by your freaking perky voice every 5 blocks telling me what the connecting buses are. I get that you are trying to be helpful, but the city bus is every man for himself. Read the schedule, check your phone app, ask the driver, ask someone next to you. Sink or swim. ONLY THE STRONG SURVIVE. If you need to get somewhere, you figure it out.

Things I also don't need to hear include

• being told that the bus is `about to get busy' at a certain stop and that we should `choose who we want to sit next to now before we don't get a choice' and that people should `move back to make room'. Normally I'm all about telling people to get the eff to the back of the bus, but after loading all the people at this particularly busy stop, THERE WERE STILL EMPTY SEATS. Ask anyone who has ridden a bus at rush hour, if there are still empty seats, the bus may as well be empty - that's how far from being full it feels; that's how unnecessary the announcements were. 
• that we should all look at the guy up ahead spinning the sign (for some store I couldn't identify because I was not sitting in a seat where he was actually visible) because you read on your twitter feed this week that there is a sign-spinning competition in Las Vegas each year. `Can you believe that? I'm not making this up.'  ... ... Ask me if I care. Go ahead, ask. 
• that we've made it more than half way through the week after waking up early this morning and have a happy hump day. How about you go hump yourself, dude. My day would have been happier if you could have just kept your mouth shut for my bus ride. 

If eye-rolling made a sound, I would have been the loudest passenger on the bus this morning. 

So there you have it. In case you had forgotten in the last 18 months what an angry person I truly am, I hope this has been a nice reminder for you.

Update: I often take two buses home. A fast one that cuts off the long way around that the slow route I take in the morning follows, then I switch to the slow route for the last 5 stops or so. Did that this evening and guess who was driving the slow route bus that I happened to get on. JUST GUESS.

Did you say `perky unnecessary-announcement morning driver'? If so, you're right! The bus gods apparently hate me this week. 

Two buses diverge in a yellow wood

Two of the bus routes I ride regularly overlap for a small portion of their routes (we're talking like 6 blocks here people). But apparently that is enough to confuse some bus drivers who drive both routes.

Today, for not the first time I might add, I was riding the bus that is supposed to go straight at the intersection where the two routes diverge. So you can imagine my surprise when we're suddenly rounding that corner. Of course, the first time this happened I had a momentary panic that perhaps I got on the wrong bus or there was some detour that I was unaware of, but this time I knew exactly what had happened. And I knew that we were going to get to drive around in a nice circle to get going back in the right direction.

Don't worry, I didn't want to be home anytime soon. This is a nice way to cap an already mediocre Monday.

Move to the back or get punched in the back

It really is best for everyone if you just move to the back of the bus...including for yourself. Because, you see, if you don't, but then other people (who aren't jerks or idiots) who actually want to get to the back have to go around you. In order to let them pass you (kind soul that you are) you have to lean back awkwardly and probably take a bit of a step. But then that step might cause you to almost step on some poor girl's (who may or may not have a transit blog) foot. Unfortunately for you, that girl is on top of things and to prevent such a misfortune to her own foot, she is forced to jam her fist into your back to keep you from backing up.

Moral of the story: if you don't want to be punched by a passive aggressive blogger, you should just move to the back of the bus.

mom, mom, Mom, MOM, MOOOMMM

You know what's even less fun than a 30 minute bus ride at 11:30pm? The same bus ride with a shrieking toddler. The same bus ride with a shrieking toddler so loud I can hear her over my headphones. The same bus ride with a shrieking toddler whose delinquent mother is either too high or too stupid to actually do any parenting and just lets her keep yelling. I mean, you know it's bad when the bus driver has to make an announcement: "Young lady, there's no screaming on the bus." Now I don't have kids, but I kinda thought that sort of thing fell under the "parent duty" umbrella, not the "bus driver duty" umbrella.

It's a one way street

The alternative title for this post is "You snooze, you lose". By this what I mean is that if you see a seat at the front of the bus that you want, you should sit in it as soon as you reach it.

What you should not do, as illustrated by the girl getting on the bus in front of me this afternoon, is get on the bus at the front of a long line of people, get halfway down the aisle of the bus and then try to turn around to sit in a seat you already passed. Why? Read the title...Because it's a one-freakin-way street! There isn't room for me to let you pass me, and a line of a dozen people (the latter half of which can't even see that you exist) certainly is not just going to back itself up so you can get your preferred seat. You had your chance; you missed it. Now you either keep moving your ass along with the flow or I ram into you with my backpack as you try to squeeze past me in reverse.

Music to my ears

If you're going to get on the bus carrying a giant musical instrument you should probably endeavor to not nearly take off the heads of everyone sitting on the aisle with it as you hunt for a seat.

Better yet, if it turns out you're only going ONE STOP, maybe you should just stand at the front with that thing. Normally I'd say just walk the two blocks, but watching this kid attempt to walk the length of the bus and carry his case at the same time was cringe-worthy enough.

No marching band for you kid.

Am I a terrible person because I don't want to talk to your child on the bus

Got on a bus leaving campus today. Went to sit at the back in my usual spot when I saw a kid sitting by himself. He seemed kinda young to be riding the bus alone (like 6 or 7 maybe), but there was no adult who was evidently attached to him.

A few people got on the bus at the same time as me and the child immediately went up to a couple of them and said "do you want to play with me?" After a couple of polite declines, the child proceeded to sit in about 3 different seats and swing around one of the handrails, with no intervention from the man I eventually discovered to be his father (via the repeated tossing back and forth of the child's backpack).

The child found a slightly more receptive audience when a group of girls got on a few stops later. They politely engaged in some conversation and what I think was an exchange of popcorn from the child. All the while I am staring at my phone, have my headphones in and am desperately trying not to make eye contact. I figured I was safe, until the gaggle of girls departed the bus. Then the child came and sat next to me.

Luckily he didn't try to talk to me. I mean, if I don't want to engage with adults in conversation on the bus, I certainly don't want to be trapped talking to a child for half an hour. I didn't even move my backpack off the seat next to me. Now maybe that makes me a bad person, but the bus was not that full. And also, go sit with your freaking dad!

Of course, being the ADD child he seemed to be, eventually he had to move from my seat as well. He went back to his first attempt, and chatted up the girl at the back of the bus. I had to laugh when she asked him if he was an only child; I couldn't decide what I thought the answer would be: yes, because he seems overly comfortable talking to adults, or no, or else he'd be able to entertain himself quietly on the bus.

At some point in the middle of this conversation, I was also offered popcorn, which I politely declined.

When his last captive conversationalist got off the bus, he degenerated into bursts of "who let the dogs out" and then asked a few more people (myself included) if they wanted to play with him and his dad.

I nicely said "no thank you", despite wanting to suggest a game called "shut up and sit down before I throw you off the freaking bus".

Seriously, there's a fine line between friendly and annoying. This kid couldn't even see that line anymore.

Some days you're the punchline

I went to the theatre on campus this evening. Saw their production of Twelfth Night, which was excellent by the way. I was feeling pretty classy as I strolled back to my office to pick up my backpack before catching the bus. Of course, that wouldn't last.

From across the street, I saw the bus coming outside my office; I knew the next one wasn't for another half an hour and I wasn't feeling too keen to hang out in my office at 10:30 at night. So I sprinted into the building into my (locked) office, nearly running some guy down in the hallway. Then I sprinted back out to the bus stop - where the bus was just about to pull away; not to be deterred by a small thing like a moving bus, I kept going and practically ran the bus down in a crosswalk. Apparently I freaked the bus driver out a bit, but he stopped for me. Success!

Needless to say, if you read another transit blog post today about some crazy girl with purple hair sprinting in and out of a building, shrieking the occasional profanity while running alongside a bus...that was probably me.

Bus karma

Well maybe not karma exactly, but someone must think my transit rides have been too easy lately. As a result today was crazy old man at the bus stop day.

First, on my way to church I have to change buses. So I get off one bus and I head to the next bus stop and it's absolutely pouring down rain. Naturally, I go to stand under the cover, but I notice someone else is already there. No big deal right? Who wouldn't stand under cover waiting for the bus in this rain. Incorrect, big deal indeed. It's the friendly neighborhood drunk. He's polishing off a bottle of probably vodka and he's chatty. Of course, he's also drunk and doesn't have much coherent to say. I've got headphones in and a hood over my head and he's slurring a little. I think I made out the phrases "I'm drunk", "I'm an alcoholic " (shocking thanks for the revelation), "I'm waiting for the bus" and something about the Seahawks. Turns out it feels really awkward flat out ignoring someone who's talking at you, but I barely want to talk to sober people at the bus stop never mind sir slurs-a-lot. When the bus finally came, I got on and I think the old guy tried to get on, but when the bus pulled away he was sprawled out on the sidewalk in front of the stop (don't worry though...he probably didn't feel a thing).

Later, thinking I was done with crazy for the day, I made my way to the bus stop to go home. This time there was an old guy eating a sandwich. Now not everyone who waits at a bus stop is looney tunes, mostly it's just other normal people or at least crazies who have the decency to keep to themselves, so I had no reason to suspect this guy was also whackadoo until...
"Nice hair"
So far not too weird. After all, my hair is purple, people comment.
"Yeah, I really like your green hair"
Oh boy...maybe he's color blind?
"Your green hair looks really good especially with the orange highlights. Is green your favorite color?"
And I'm out. Luckily the bus wasn't coming for 10 minutes so I had time to walk to another stop.

It's so nice when everything goes right

Don't you love it when it's your first day of teaching for the quarter and you get up early so you'll get to school in time to do some prep before class. Then you're waiting for the bus and it doesn't show up. Ten minutes later when you've given up hope of an early bus, a bus shows up, but it's got the wrong number on it. Luckily the bus driver tells you it's actually the correct bus. However, then at every stop you get to listen to the bus driver scream out the bus number along with things like "let's go" and "what other bus runs here?" Then when you're almost there, you take an extra long stop for some other transit dude to get on the bus and try to fix it...because in the middle of the route seems like a good time for that.

I get it; it sucks that your bus is broken, but how exactly are the people at the bus stop supposed to know that? You can hardly blame us for being confused and slightly hesitant to get on the "55 to Alaska junction" when we're trying to get to UW. I've had bus drivers pull up to the wrong stop before, so sorry, but they don't get to be pissed at us for not just assuming they are driving the correct bus; I don't have that much faith in transit, or humanity for that matter.

Post transit travesty

One of the downfalls that comes with taking transit everywhere is having to walk home from transit at the end of the day.

That's exactly what I was doing tonight after finishing (and hoping to forget about) my last final and celebrating with my classmates after. It was after midnight when I was walking home from the bus. I'm tired; I have my headphones in; I just want to be home and I'm not interested in talking to anyone. I'm waiting to cross the street when I think I hear someone in the lone car at the intersection say something to me. Now I'm tired and my brain is fried from finals, so at first I assume they must be lost (because why else do you strike up a conversation at a crosswalk at midnight) and it takes a few seconds for my inner skeptic to kick in. By the time I realize it's just a couple dudes in the car, not so much lost as pathetic and starved for attention, I've already made eye contact. They say something else I can't hear because...well, headphones, but I give them a wave (because thanks for not running me down with your car I guess) and carry on crossing the street...because what the heck else did they think I would do.

Then as I pass the car I hear the one guy say, "The least you could do is say hi." No, jackass, the least I could do is completely ignore you and pretend like your pathetic existence isn't ruining my perfectly peaceful walk home.

More like two busses away

It's amazing how many fewer transit travesties you experience when your over an hour plus transfers crazy person bus rides turn into one 20 minute bus ride through a nice residential neighborhood.

Now I've gotten a little spoiled with Seattle having the One Bus Away app. It's great because you can zoom in to any portion of the map of Seattle and see where the bus stops are, which busses stop there and when they are going to arrive updated in real time....sort of. Which brings us to today's frustration.

I leave my office and go out to catch my bus. It's supposed to arrive in 6 minutes. When I get to the bus stop, I check one bus away: it says my bus is 5 minutes early. Awesome! I get to leave in a minute and be home early (more time for my take home midterm). Three minutes later, still no bus. Check one bus away: your bus is only 3 minutes early, it's arriving NOW. Ok, still early, great. Three more minutes, still no bus. Check one bus away: your bus is on time, it's arriving NOW. Sure, where have I heard that before. Five more minutes, still no bus. Check one bus away: your bus left 3 minutes late, it arrives in -2 minutes. No one bus away, no it did not. I would know, I've been standing here over 10 minutes now watching for it. Couple minutes later, check one bus away: previous bus has disappeared off the app, your next bus arrives in 10 minutes. A likely story...

(Update: after 20 minutes sitting at a bus stop when I could have been working in my office that is 45 seconds away, I'm finally on a bus!)

Adding injury to insult

For 3 days in a row now, I've arrived at the intersection across from my bus stop only to stand across the busy highway waiting an eternity for the light to change while watching my bus pull up to the stop, load and then drive away. Of course you know that the light changes 30 seconds after the bus pulls away.

As if that's not a crappy enough way to start my day, when I finally get on the bus I'm sitting in a seat minding my own business when some guy decides he wants to try to walk to the front of the bus while it's moving. This requires him to walk through the accordion part of the bus where there are limited handles. Clearly he does not understand his own balance limitations, because if he did he would have known that was a bad idea. Because if the bus happens to lurch while you're walking you might have to slam your foot down to catch your balance and it could land with the full force of your fat ass on some poor unsuspecting girl's foot.

My toes are still burning. TGIF?

Seattle Freeze

If you haven't heard of the Seattle freeze, apparently it's basically a way of saying it's hard to make friends in Seattle. Either people are just hard to get to know or they will be really nice and friendly when they meet you, but then when you suggest subsequent activities, they flake out or don't follow up. Personally I thought that was just called life, but I guess the rest of the world thinks it's a Seattle thing.

One place where I didn't think this would be a problem, in fact it even seemed like a plus, is on the bus. What I didn't take into account was the "really friendly when they first meet you" part. Seriously, am I wearing a sign that says "please chat me up on the bus"? From crazy lady the other day, to a guy yesterday trying to chat about my hair (he was either gay or trying to hit on me...either way I was tired, trying to read about stereographic projections and not having any of it) and then today some lady asked about when the bus was coming and then proceeded to tell me how she was going to be late for an appointment and that she commutes every day but doesn't work Fridays and that her niece is 16 but she's in college and on the swim team and working and...

WHAT THE HECK?!

I miss Vancouver, where you could ride the bus in silence and everyone was more than happy to pretend no one else existed. Now that's how you do a freeze.

There's a first time for everything

I have on occasion considered getting off transit to get away from someone, but I'd never actually done it until today.

I saw a single open seat on the bus when I got on, so I sat down. The woman next to me seemed completely absorbed in her phone. Perfect. When she finally looked up it was to ask if we were at street X; I was confused at first, but then I realized we were in fact more than 100 blocks north of X. That should have been my first clue.

A few more minutes pass and she decides she gonna start talking to me. I try to listen at first to be polite. She's complaining about a transit fine because she missed her stop and rode to the end of the line and stayed on the bus when it turned around so she didn't reswipe her pass. I'm smiling and nodding, not actually saying more than 2 words at a time; haven't even taken out my headphones. She continues to tell me that she was going to her boyfriend's house, but she missed the stop because she was "messed up". Uh oh, red flag number 2.

Then it gets weird. She starts talking like she knows me.
Her: "you're married right?"
Me: "uh, no" (super confused because I'm not even wearing my decoy ring)
Her: "but you have a baby right?"
Me: "uh...no..."
She goes on to explain that I look like another girl with a baby that she met on the bus and that girl is pregnant, but I don't look pregnant. This naturally led into a story about a dude who thought she was pregnant once because she was wearing a big hoody with stuff in the pockets. She then continues her rant about guys by explaining she has a guy friend who really wants to sleep with her, which is messed up because she has a boyfriend and she's no cheater. Of course, this is still awkward, but I thought we established that she doesn't actually know me.

No such luck.
Her: "so how long have you been at Y?"
Me (having no idea what Y is, but not wanting to be forthcoming with personal info to a stranger on the bus): "a little while"
Her: "like a few years?"
Me: "oh not that long?"
Her: "I've been there about 8 years. So you know there's this white girl there and she's with this Puerto Rican guy. You know them right?"
Me (still with headphones in, music on and not really making eye contact): "uh, no"
Her: "oh really, you don't know them? Well they have a baby and it's like the cutest baby..."
Me: "oh yeah..."
At this point it's pretty clear there is no stopping her, nor is there any making sense of what is coming out of her clearly drug-addled brain. So at the next stop, I'm out.
Me: "well, this is my stop" (totally not my stop, not even within reasonable walking distance to my stop)
Her: "okay, thanks for listening to my..."
I have no idea how that sentence ended; I just smiled and nodded as I hauled ass off that bus.

I should have been almost home by now

Remember that time I was at grad school orientation and after a long first day of TA training, we had a BBQ in the park and then we went out to a pub. But I was super responsible (and very tired) and left early. Then I was super pumped because my bus stop was right outside the pub and the bus showed up 30 seconds after I got there. Then I was totally on time to make my connecting bus and I could see the bus at the stop when I got there, so I booked it up a flight of stairs only to wave at the driver as she took off without me. So then I sat and wasted 15 more minutes waiting for the next bus at 9:30 at night when I still had about a 30 minute trip home AND homework to do for my next day of TA training. Remember that time? Those were good times.

Transit Transplant

Today was my first day on transit in a new city: Seattle! I've only been on 2 different buses so far, but perhaps not surprisingly, it's not much different from Vancouver. Get on, pay, try to find a seat, don't make eye contact, watch for your stop, get off. There's the usual collection of characters: the average folk, the weirdos, old people, children, and a bus driver who also comes in a variety of flavors.

Of course, there are some differences. The local buses seem quite old. They still have stairs to get on them; I felt really bad watching old people trying to get on the bus. There's no skytrain equivalent going to where I'm living, but they do have what are called RapidRide buses. They have a dedicated lane on the road to avoid traffic; they stop every 5 or 10 blocks; the buses are more like the ones in Vancouver - only one step to get on and wheelchair ramp equipped; AND ...here's the best part ...they have free wifi on the bus! No travesty there.

All in all, getting from my place to the university was pretty simple and even without a skytrain, it took less time than it used to take me to get to SFU. There was only one small hiccup in my day. During my trip I had to transfer from bus 1 to bus 2. The google instructions told me to get off bus 1 at the corner of X and Y and to get on bus 2 at the corner of X and Y. Simple, right? Get off bus, cross street to other bus stop, board other bus...Wrong! How it actually went: Get off bus, realize there is no cross street because you're standing on a highway overpass, walk down set of nearby stairs, still no sign of said cross street, walk along parallel street which forms strange triangle with 2 other streets - neither of which is one you're looking for, cross the road and head towards underpass, breath sigh of relief when you finally see a bus stop. I'm sure it won't be the last time I have no idea where I'm going, but for now, I think I at least have that intersection figured out.

Are you a stripper?

No? Then you probably don't need to wrap your whole body around the pole at the front of the bus so that I am left trying to hang on to those stupid rails above my head for balance. Especially when today's bus driver had clearly never heard of gradual acceleration or taking it easy in the corners. Because what I really wanted was to feel like my shoulder was going to be ripped from its socket just so that you could drape yourself comfortably all over the handrail.

This is why we use our feet to get around campus

Some lady on the 145 this afternoon absolutely lost her sh*t.

There's construction on campus, so buses are detouring from their usual routes. Today, as happens on occasion, the bus skipped all but one campus stop and went straight off the hill to avoid construction delay. Granted, the driver probably should have made an announcement that this was happening, but given that the only woman who seemed to have a problem with it didn't speak a lick of English, I doubt it would have helped.

As soon as we passed the turn that would have kept us on campus, she realized what had happened and she lost it. She ran to the front doors and started screaming at the driver. Of course she was screaming in, let's call it Asian (I don't think it was Chinese, but it could have just been her shrill screaming that made it sound different...doesn't matter...point is it wasn't English) so the driver couldn't talk to her if he wanted to. But her point was clear. She wanted off the bus like the world was ending. She screamed and hit the bus doors. She almost grabbed the driver. She shrieked in what seemed like a desperate plea for help towards the back of the bus. No dice. She was repeatedly informed by the driver that the bus was not stopping. She began to sob like someone had died. She continue to hit the doors and scream through the weeping (I may have a voice recording to add to this post later this is a short snippet of what happened; the dying farm animal sound is the woman crying and this was after she had tired out some). I wish I had taken a video; it was easily in the top 3 most dramatic transit incidents I have witnessed.

About halfway down the hill, some Asian speaking good samaritan went to talk to her, presumably to figure out why the desperation and to explain that the problem could be remedied by another 15 minute bus ride. She seemed slightly less insane for the remainder of the ride, which is good, because even tiny old Asian ladies are scary when they have that much crazy behind them.

A trilogy of non-occurances

It's like the honorable mention of bad transit behavior today; three things that are worth noting but by themselves no longer warrant a whole post (it's amazing what you become accustomed to on transit).

First there was the girl who made the bad miniskirt choice. I got a great picture of it following her into Tim Horton's, but then she held the door open for me, smiled and waited as had to I catch up to her (because I had paused behind her to take said embarrassing photo, the irony is not lost on me). Then I felt bad, so this post will be without photo (see, I do have a soul).

Then a guy got on the skytrain with a bike (pretty sure that's not allowed during rush hour, but it's almost never big deal) ...and a shopping cart. Does skytrain even have rules about shopping carts during rush hour? Other than being a bit strange though, it was basically a non event. He told some guy he needed the space that guy was standing in; so the guy went and took an empty seat. Clearly he was very put out by the whole thing.

Then I got on the bus. Got a seat after waiting one full bus, and then watched from that seat as the bus driver purposefully and repeatedly tried to close the bus doors as another skytrain full of people ran to get on the bus. It happens so often I think it must be in the bus driver handbook somewhere: "Weekly quotas. (a) Cause 4 people to fall over due to your driving. (b) Leave behind at least 2 skytrain loads of people. (c) Leave a stop before 1 person can get off." Of course being the person already on the bus with a seat, it suits me just fine to leave before the bus is crammed full, but I've been on the other side of the doors and it sucks.