Omnibus
Omnibus, from the Latin , meaning to or for, by with or from everybody.
- Michael Flanders
Confined to quarters again while Erik's radiator sips chicken soup and drinks ice-cream through a straw, I caught the bus to work today. I boarded feeling so community-minded and environmentally friendly. How I wish my roster would allow me to catch the bus each day.
Ha! I forget that these are the things that happen to me on public transport -
bear in mind, please, that this was all the in the space of a single 15-minute trip:
1. As we got underway I dug out my trusty mobile to send a text message. I was sitting behind the driver. As we swung around the corner my sweaty hands lost grip on my repressed* Nokia, which, smelling freedom, leapt from my grasp and slid limbo-style out the door onto the asphalt. The poor bus driver jammed on the brakes and, much to the amusement of my fellow commuters, I ran back to regain custody of my wayward appliance.
2. Just as the bus was entering the city a car swung across two lanes of traffic to turn left in front of us. The poor bus driver jammed on the brakes and we all flew about like crash test dummies. A tiny old lady across the aisle from me grazed her knee quite badly.
3. My bus makes two stops in the city - the one where everyone else gets off and the last stop of the line. I was, as you'll recall, sitting behind the driver. I was back to reading my book as we passed through the city. Suddenly the bus was in the air. We were on the flyover to the freeway. What to do? I didn't want to frighten the fella by suddenly speaking into his ear, so I pressed the bell. The poor bus driver jammed on the brakes. (How was there any tread left on these tyres?) "Bloody hell," he said, "I'm having such a bad morning!" He hadn't seen me there, assumed the bus was empty and was heading for the depot. Irritatingly, the first place he could pull up was about 5 minutes drive from my house. I'd done a big circuit. It took me 20 minutes to walk back to where I was supposed to get off, but the sunshine on my face did me good. And I made my connecting bus, which made me suspicious.
* Help, help! I'm being repressed! (Bloody peasants!)
posted by Magnificent Trout @ 9:36 pm
3 comments
3 Comments:
here's my recent experience:
My bus route gets a new driver every other day... so they ask the passengers for directions. Having helped the guy navigate out of the city and into Spring Hill, I started reading/listening to mp3s. Then I realised that he was turning right instead of left on St Pauls Tce... we all yelled "left" (some people yelled "right") and the driver said "too late".
So he attempted to do a large turn around via one of the side streets in Spring HILL. note the capitals. as the bus putt putted at a crawl up a rather steep incline, then groaned down the other side, we attempted to re-emerge back on to St Pauls Tce going the other way.
Unfortunately, steep hills, sharp corners and large machinery do not mix. well. the bus scraped its front along the ground until it could scrape no more. then the driver asked me to get out and tell the people in the cars behind us to go around (why do people follow large tuning vehicles so closely???) and then he did a three point turn, much to the amusement of all the homeless people hanging out in the Salvation Army hostel.
We eneded up about 15 minutes late... but at least we were on the bus. he missed a stop in all the excitement.
oh, I forgot.
the city council should get an award for the "most original work of fiction" for it's bus timetables. (just ahead of the Courier Mail's front page editor)
I know - I count on my local being its regulation 10 minutes late and get very annoyed when it's actually - gasp! - ON TIME.
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