Wednesday, February 20, 2008

Friggin' Bus

If there was ever a day for the bus I take in to work to break down, today was not it. When I left the house this morning it was a whopping -9 degrees outside. Needless to say, waiting out on the corner of the street for my bus to magically appear was not a fun experience. True, I was only standing at the bus stop for probably 15 minutes, but it was a cold 15 minutes.

While I waited there, I thought back to when I was in middle school stuck riding the bus to school. I couldn't wait to get my license so that I could drive to school and bypass the 45 minute bus ride. When I finally received my license and ability to drive completely on my own that fateful March 18th, I thought I was free from the confines of bus interiors forever. Too bad I was totally wrong.

I still had to take buses to all of my away sporting events. And these bus rides sucked even harder than my everyday bus rides since they were usually just as long (if not longer) and usually had not only other kids packed into the bus, but sporting equipment as well. Track was the worst, but the best at the same time. As cramped as we were during track, I actually found myself enjoying my time spent with my fellow track runners.

Once high school was done, I was surely finished with bus riding, though. Right? Not so much. I just so happened to choose a college (St. John's University) that had a sister campus 7 miles away. I had many classes, intramurals, sports practices, and drinking activities at that campus and you can only guess how I got back and forth most of the time. Yep, by bus.

College came to an end and I had a couple of years without any run ins with buses and it was all good. However, once I moved to Minneapolis I found that it was so much more cost effective (and easier) to take public transit (ie: the bus) from home to work and back again... so here I am at 26 years of age--a decade after I thought I was free from buses--still using them just about every day.

It's crazy to think about, but I'll probably be utilizing the bus routes for the foreseeable future. It just makes way more sense than driving. So I've learned to embrace the bus. Instead of it being a royal pain in my ass, it has become my time to veg out and decompress after the day is over, or to attempt to start waking up on my way in to work. It's nice, actually.

Just goes to prove how dumb I was at 16 years of age.

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