August 2017
The Journey – Part 1
Posted on August 9, 2017
The plan is for me to get out of work on time, hit a bus, a train, a train and a bus to start my weekend at the beach. Now that doesn’t sound all too taxing. Pretty much a lot of sitting. It’s not until you add a few factors into the mix when things can turn hairy.
Things such as I have to catch the first bus ten minutes from the time I close for the day. The stop is only two minutes away so the only thing that can go wrong is customers. If one of those bastards lingers after hours, even after my not so gentle exhortations, it’ll make me miss the bus. So that’s the first obstacle. There are others until I get to the final bus. Late trains, getting caught in heavy but slow foot traffic that you just can’t find a spot to blow past, your own failure to keep up a hefty walking pace, and please don’t have me run into anyone I know while I’m foot bound. It happened once and the person was so pissed (or so they said in an email I looked at days later) after I said,
“Hi. Don’t have time. Say it to me in an email.” While blowing past them.
From the time the first bus leaves I have one hour and five minutes to accomplish this task. And it all begins back at work.
It’s thirty minutes before closing. I see that people are getting closer to wrapping up their day in plenty of time. I begin shutting down my day counting off the minutes. Now I know anything can go wrong in this time period (and by wrong I mean some idiot comes in) but, at this moment, all cues are in place.
Sixteen minutes to closing the front door opens. I say bad words in my head. I say more bad words in my head when I see who it is. Please, let me explain my heady outburst. Yesterday this same person came in asking to buy boxes. Simple, cardboard boxes. I point him to the display that he just walked past. He wandered over, stared at the five choices then went about inspecting said boxes as if they were the Hope diamond. Checking all angles, thumping it for some unknown to humans reason, shaking it (huh? As my Zen master Wong says, “Empty boxes contain no sound. Why the hell are you shaking it, jackass?” Wong’s a good Zen master but he has a pretty short fuse).
He then puts the box he wants on the counter. An unnecessary step. Do you know why? The name of the box is plastered across the front of the box. Say the name and the box whore will go gather it. I don’t need to see the physical manifestation of the box. I am aware of what the damn box looks like, jackass. Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
After he places the box on the counter he says, “I’d like. . .”
And then he spends the next twenty seconds (and I am not exaggerating) staring at the box. Twenty seconds. Do you know how long that is when a person is staring at a box? It’s twenty fucking seconds too long, let me tell you. Don’t believe me? Stop reading now and stare ahead for twenty seconds. You started to lose it after ten, didn’t you? No? It wasn’t that long? Okay, send me your address. I’ll visit you and punch you in the head for twenty seconds. Do you think it’ll fell long then? Glad you got my point.
So this is the obstacle I have between me and bus #1. He comes in and I see what transaction is going to take place. I estimate a time and feel his completion of it will fall within a comfortable spot. Which proves what a fucking idiot I am.
My first inkling that something was about to go awry was when someone grabbed the doorknob to my office. In my experience when that happens someone is panicked. First because they’ve never touched that door before and second because the door they have always opened to discuss issues with me is right next to it. After a beat he opens the correct door, sticks his head inside and says,
“I forgot my keys. I have to go back to my house.”
I don’t panic. I’m no rookie. I look at that guy and say,
“You really are a fucking moron, aren’t you?”
No, I didn’t say that! That would be rude! Correct, but rude.
Instead I looked at the clock, twelve of , twenty-two minutes to bus #1, and say,
“You have ten minutes.” He swiftly exits and I continue moving my work day closer to completion.
Three minutes to closing and the group here completes their task and waves me a grand goodbye. Two minutes to closing the front door opens and the key forgetting box inspector enters. Wordlessly (Zen master Wong taught me that. “If you can’t say anything pleasant to another remain quiet and seethe.” He really is full of wisdom) I guide his entrance to the building. I lock the door as he goes about his task and I end my day.
And wait.
I’m watching him on the camera and he’s moving. In a sloth like manner. But it’s still movement. Two past the hour. Eight minutes to bus #1. Four past the hour. It looks as if he’s nearing completion. But he stops. Why are you stopping? Please don’t think about why you’re stopping. I sure as shit don’t have time for that level of contemplation. Six past the hour. He reaches the front of the building. I begin to tidy up after him and quickly get to the absolute end of my work day. Eight past the hour I am out the door. Two minutes to go two minutes. Piece of cake.
Unless the bus driver, as often happens, decides to leave a touch early. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve turned the corner just in time to watch the bus pull away. But I don’t think that will happen today. I have faith that I can make it.
If this damn customer would stop talking to me! I’m trying to get past but he wants a little chat time. What he doesn’t know is, as mentioned earlier, I’m an on the fly chat off expert. My feet don’t stop as I wittily respond to his statements but, possibly before he knows I’m gone, I’m in the street heading for the first of many finish lines.
I turn the corner and the bus is there. The traffic is in my favor so I dash across the street and get to the bus just as the driver was reaching for the lever to shut the door. I calmly slap my card on the reader, the ching of money being spent is heard and as he pulls away I glide to my seat.
I now have sixty-five minutes to make it to my final bus.
The ride to the first train station is rapid and uneventful. We’re making good time. I’m counting down and we’re on schedule. We pull into the first train station and I rush in, turn the corner and notice that all the turnstiles are blocked off by temporary fences. This stops me in my tracks, obviously. I look around trying to see what the issue is when I see it. The sign that is the bane of the harried commuters existence.
“Station closed. Shuttle bus this way.”
Not a shuttle bus?!??!?!?!
The Journey – Part 2
Posted on August 23, 2017
Yes, a shuttle bus. I didn’t know it but the station is being worked on so we’re being shuttled to the nearest station. Some people at this juncture would pack it in, not strain themselves to push on. But most people haven’t had my collection of head trauma. I rush outside to be met with a bus with more people in it than many small towns. But I shove myself into this mass and writhe along with my fellow chattel.
I regret not having checked the time while I was in the train station. Now I can’t make myself crazy calculating ETA’s. Instead I focus on the number of red lights we hit (all of them) and the interesting fragrance wafting from at least one of the passengers behind me. A combination of milk about to spoil and a wet muskrat that has recently been sprayed by a skunk.
By the time we get to the next station I know I’ve lost some time. I race up the stairs and see that I’ve lost probably five minutes. I now have fifty-four minutes to get to the end. That’s not good. I race up the stairs, once again slam my card against a reader to spend more money and hustle down to the train.
If there was one there. Shit. I stand on the platform, like everyone else, and wait. I look at the journey and see that I need to pass eight stations, change over to another line for two stops then go up two of the longest staircases you’ve ever seen (that’s what happens when you climb from under the ground. You have to travel some distance) and hustle through two buildings (with two more staircases) until I get to the bus stations ticket office in fifty-two minutes.
This does not bode well.
Three long minutes go by and a train slowly pulls into the station. And within seconds of the door opening the platform is over run by humans with suitcases. Is a suitcase convention in town? Two out of every three people lurching off the train has a suitcase. I juke past a small woman with a giant suitcase she’s having trouble controlling and get into the train. Okay, we can leave now.
But we can’t. There are more suitcase people still on the train attempting to gather up all their suitcases and get off the train. It’s a tsunami of suitcases. Waves and waves of people pass by dragging their suitcases with varying degrees of competency. One woman is pulling her reticent suitcase as if she’s dragging a petulant child. It’s rocking to and fro and making high pitched grinding sounds. But they keep coming.
They must have all alighted the train because the doors close. I quickly check the clock and four minutes has passed. Forty-seven minutes. Not undoable. But it’s not up to me. I am at the mercy of any happenstance. The platform is now devoid of luggage.
So what are they waiting for? Go already. If I took a vote I’m sure 100% of everyone sitting here would say, “Fuck my fellow man, they can get the next damn train.”
But we sit there. Doors open. While time ticks a way.
Finally, after four more minutes, we start moving. We’re moving and that’s good for me. Not awesome good but fair good. I know you’re wondering why only fair good. It’s because the train is going six miles an hour. I’d forgotten that the train company added a station due to a large shopping and living center popping up in a once barren wasteland. Oh do I long for the days of that barren wasteland when we’d roar past at breakneck speed. But now it’s a chuga-chuga of a children’s book choo-choo.
We finally pull into the station as gently as a bomb squad technician removes an explosive. Faces glide by as if I’m walking past them. Slowly. With a limp. The doors open and more humanity spills in. Don’t you people have anything better to do? It’s a nice day. Wouldn’t you rather be outside instead of entombed in this metal tube rolling down a track? I know I don’t but some of you bastards sure as hell do.
The train picks up and we’re off. The next station. The next one. We’re making some time now. I get to the stop where I change trains and see that I now have thirty-five minutes to finish this last section. I have to walk across a concourse, get to the train, get off the train and then bust my ass to the bus station.
I’m trying to slip myself through the gaggle of people lollygagging around. It’s as if they’re never seen a homeless guy tongue kissing his pet squirrel before. Fucking tourists. Move it along, Jon Boy! Don’t start getting homesick now. Every time I pass a clock a minute passes. It’s going to be tight and I know it.
Walking across the concourse I notice the guy in front of me. His movements caught my attention. We’re walking on a tile floor that is exquisitely decorated (if you ignore the innumerable unrecognizable stains grafted to the floor) with lines of smaller tiles creating a dividing line. I’d never really thought about this floor before (the aforementioned stains only a small reason for this slight) but it is obvious this guy has.
He stutter steps and steps over every line. Does he not see them as just more tiles? Is it an elaborate game of step on a crack, break your mother’s back? Sometimes he smoothly glides over the lines but then his stride goes a little off and it’s a quick soft shoe until so he can deftly avoid the horizontal tiles. It was quite fascinating to see this glimpse into this guy’s psyche. And it sure made me want to sneak up behind him and give him a pair of wet willies. I’m sure that would have placed him in an hours long fetal position.
I arrive at the next train platform. Half an hour. Tight but I have a good feeling about this. Which was dashed when I got the news that the next train will be along in four minutes. So I do what any person in my position would do. Look around for that goofy footer to test out my wet willie theory.
The train pulls in and we go on our way. Slowly, very slowly on our way. Are there slow children playing on these tracks? Why are we going to damn slow? But we get to the next station. One more and I begin my last push. I’m planning ahead to try to cut off seconds. Old ladies? Turn them into human slinkies if one gets in my way. Someone asking for directions? Five finger death punch to the throat.
While I’m going over my choices I notice a problem. To my left is a twin sized baby carriage blocking that exit. Huddling around the precious cargo are the parents, grandmother and another little cherub (in this situation cherub means obstacle). No problem.
I’ll hit the right egress.
Mother of syphilitic vixens! A gaggle of bicyclists. What are you doing here? Are you just showing us you have these fancy bikes? Showing them a less annoying form of transportation? You have wheels, use them! I look left, I look right. Who in my way hits the ground tonight?
As luck would have it both potential obstacles must have felt my impending evisceration because both ends parted and I could let them go one living their relatively annoying lives.
I get off the train and head towards the bus station. I’m so close but also some vital minutes away. I glance at a clock. It’s 4:55. Twenty minutes left. It’s been awhile since I’ve done this but I do remember it being a rather time sucking walk. So let’s get to it, shall we?
Through the train station, up the stairs, across something, through a thing, down a hallway, it’s as if I’m my own character in some dumb ass video game. I can feel the minutes tick past as the hit the largest of the staircases. As I’m moving towards it I survey my options.
The escalator is action packed. There is a gaggle of roughly thirty people in a tight knot just starting to hit the start of the escalator. I can’t get tied up in that. So I look way up, I mean skyscraper neck crane here, to the top of the stairs. I have my path. Joining me on the stairs is one other guy. He has a lead so that gives me a goal. I’m not only going to beat those lazy escalator people up to the top I’m beating this guy.
And it was harder than you think.
But I did it. I blew past the escalator and the hideous people who reside there on my way to the next staircase about a thousand yards away. It’s a smaller staircase, about 3/4 the size, and I hit it as if I’m being chased. I can feel myself slowing down about midway up. But I can also see something rising up with each step. The top of an analog clock. Each step reveals a little more of the actual time. I see the big hand. The most important hand to me right now. A few more steps and it shows me that I have six minutes to get to the bus station.
Very very tight. Tighter than a tick in a fat guys stomach roll.
I hit the top of the stairs and do what comes naturally. Run.
“No running.” I hear, seriously, eight strides in. I stop and turn to face where the sound came from. A transit cop was standing beside a pole. Just waiting for me my paranoid side says. “You can’t run in here.” He’s being cool, very matter of fact. I’m walking past and it dawns on me.
“Oh, I get it. Some weird ass bald guy racing through a crowded train station could make some people nervous.” The cop laughs and nods. I smile at him as I walk past. “Maybe if they didn’t play the ‘see something, say something’ jingle every ninety seconds people wouldn’t be in such a panic.”
“You have a point.” He says as I continue on past.
I go through the food court. Zigging and zagging around people going in four directions. I hit the door to the train platform that will lead me to the bus station. I see people filing towards me and make the right adjustments around them, beams and garbage barrels. But I’m still moving, still on my way.
I hit the first of three staircases. Complete. The next one is bigger. Then another long walk to the final staircase which is the biggest one in the bus station. I’m walking as fast as one can while thinking, “Don’t move too fast. You’ll panic the weak ones and never make any bus.”
I get to the top of the stairs, move right and head to the ticket counter. I see the clock a hundred feet before I reach the ticket counter.
5:15.
Right on time!
My idiot side says.
But I trundle on. I go up to the counter and ask the guy if I can get on the bus that I know is loading passengers as we speak.
“No. Ticketing is closed. There’s another one at 6:15.”
You don’t say, turd muffin.
“We couldn’t try?”
“It’ll take about five minutes to even process the ticket. By then it’s sure to be gone.” Without irony, pity or sarcasm he says,
“You want one for 6:15?”
I think back on the journey I just experienced and say,
“Fuck it. I’m going to get a beer.”
The Journey – Part 3
Posted on September 6, 2017
I slowly saunter back down the stairs I moments ago hurried up. I’m heading to the food court. Specifically, this one bar there.
I’ve never been in this one before but I’ve been in it’s sister bar in the city. To all the hip, happening people in the know it’s called TITS. Because when you put the full title of the bar into initials it spells tits. Good enough a place to drink I’ve heard from many a child.
I now have fifty minutes to kill. A cold beer and a warm ball game and I’ll be just fine. My girlfriend who is going to meet me in a bar on the other side will sooner or later figure out I missed the bus. She’s good like that. I pull up a chair, order a beer and proceed to attempt to forget the last hour of my life.
I’m sitting there watching the ballgame when a guy sits next to me. He’s making so much noise I know he wants to get a conversation going. Hey, Starshine, go talk to someone without a homicidal hair-trigger. You’ll thank me later. He asks for the beer menu then proceeds to read it for five, six, seven minutes. I’ve been tracking tight seconds for so long I’m starting to sweat thinking about how much time he’s wasting.
He motions the bartender over to make his choice. They’re out. Sort of funny. He and the bartender go back and forth. He finally picks another. Damn! This is getting funnier. Strike two. The bartender begins rattling off the beers they do have but he goes it on his own with his third choice. Boy is my mood elevated right now. I’ll admit to being a little tweaked when I missed the bus. But this guy’s utter failure to pick a beer is cheering me up.
Thanks smelly hippie!
After a short time a woman sits to my right. I don’t engage her, she doesn’t engage me. My most successful transaction of the day. She orders two drinks and the bartender questions her. She explains that her husband is on the way. I sit there silently while three time beer picker loser boy pulls what looks like leaves and roots out of plastic bags. They are all meticulously handled so they must have meaning to him. Which he desperately wants to explain to me as he shakes and holds the plastic bags aloft. Ah, back off, pinecone, I don’t have time for another cult.
After one beer he left. I asked the woman if she said her husband was coming. She said that she did so I moved over. I would have moved over without saying anything but I didn’t want her to think she smelled. That’s what a gentleman would do.
Her husband arrives and he is psyched. He has some amazing news and he just can’t wait to lay it on her.
“I made some reservations for our vacation.”
“Where?” His wife enthusiastically replies.
“At camp sites all over the place.”
“Why would think I’d like that?”
“It’ll be great!”
And for the entire time I sat there he tried to explain to his bride how great it would be to camp out. And for the entire time I sat there she pretty much told him it was a stupid idea and that he should just go shit in his hat.
I never met these people and, even without her objections, I knew it was a terrible idea. Every time she’d ask a good question like, “What are we going to do for a tent?” His response was,
“Borrow it from so and so.”
“Stove?”
“Borrow it from so and so.”
“Sleeping bags?”
“Borrow it from so and so.”
Not a man of the wild I take it.
I chuckled as I paid my tab knowing if that outdoor adventure every materialized she would spend the rest of their lives together reminding him just how horrible it was.
After an hours wait I’m finally on the bus. In ninety minutes or so I’ll be where I’m supposed to be and my weekend will begin. I’ll walk into the bar, say hi to my girlfriend who will tell me she’s starving, I’ll say hi to the bartender who will return the greeting but his will be better because he will have a beer in his hands for me, then, if I’m lucky, I’ll have to associate with few people after.
What I’m really looking forward to is getting home, seeing the cat and opening up a beer and relax for the first time today. My girlfriend, who has been down there all week, said she’d have some beer in the house waiting for me. Now that’s the way to start a day off. I put on my MP3 player, turn that sucker on and sit back and enjoy the ride.
We get to the destination without incident. I jump off the bus and start walking back from whence I came because, a few minutes ago, we drove by the bar I’m meeting my girlfriend in. Don’t even ask, they won’t think about letting me off there. I’ve asked a few times.
I don’t mind the walk. I get to be truly alone for the first time all day. I’m not surrounded by the sounds and smells and silly schemes of people. It’s just me and the sidewalk. I turn the corner and see the bar. I pack up my MP3 player and get ready to make my entrance.
When you open the door people can clearly see you enter but you can’t see them. It’s that dark a bar. So imagine my surprise (and dismay) when I hear,
“Who the fuck said you could come in my bar?”
It is the face of someone I haven’t spoken to in over a decade (with reason) next to her husband I haven’t spoken to in six years (no real reason – except she’s usually with him). They’re not bad people just annoying as fuck. And what do I truly need after this adventure? That’s right! Someone I avoid at home because she’s as annoying as fuck.
I can feel my body slumping as I walk in the bar. The woman jumps up and gives me the usual big hug and kiss. I wave at my girlfriend as this is happening. She gives me a look that’s half ‘I feel your pain’ and half ‘fuck you! I’ve been putting up with this for almost two hours now.’ I feel her pain.
I chat with the guy with the wife talking over us the whole time. I’m on autopilot. Trust me, it can seem like I’m there, engaged, witty, conversational, but the reality is I’m home with a cat and a beer wishing I had my own helicopter. And bar.
After who knows how long they exit to go to dinner. An invitation we declined due to a previously planned arrangement (I mentioned cat and beer right?). They make us swear we’ll meet them back here tomorrow night for some more cheerful bonhomie. I sincerely lie and say I couldn’t think of a better way to spend my few hours off during a week.
I finally get to chat with my girlfriend (who tells me she’s starving. You’ve been down all week. What did you do? Wait for me to get down here to eat?), tell her a cliffsnote version of this story (she is not a fan of my work) and we go get something to eat. The entire time, in the back of my head, all I’m thinking is, “Soon I get to go home for cat and beer.” That’s enough to get me through this journey.
After dinner we head home and the first thing I do is play with the cat for a moment. Give him some food. Scoop his shit. You know, bonding. I take off my shoes before heading to the refrigerator for the time in this journey I’ve been looking most forward too.
She forgot to buy beer.
So I create a immediate option B for the start of my weekend by putting this journey behind me and go to bed.
The end.
