Of wind and Buses

I go to yoga classes on Monday evenings to fluff up my aura and prepare myself for the long, inconsequential week of work ahead.
A couple of weeks ago, in the middle of a storm (high winds and a bit of horizontal rain for good measure), I made my way home by bus. Excellent. First bus decided to keep going along the quays instead of crossing over as it is supposed to do. So I had to cross O’Connell bridge in hurricane (not quite, really) force winds to reach the wind tunnel where my choice of busses is conveniently located. By this time the aura I had worked so hard to create was already well battered.
The place was littered with double-deckers parked in everybody’s line of vision, mountains of rubbish bags huddled around the bus stops and people blown up and down the street. I parked myself, my windswept aura, my bag and yoga mat between two stops on the look out for 3 buses. As one eventually approached I ran towards it against the breeze. With my left arm stretched out in a desperate plea for the driver to stop and holding the bag and yoga mat and the last rags of my aura in the other, I made a dash for the stop. According to my calculations, the bus should have slowed down and I should have reached the stop. Not so. The wind that was holding me, my bag, yoga mat and aura back, propelled the bus forward at an unanticipated speed. Past the stop and past me. The last ribbon of my aura was ripped from my hand by a hungry gust and I just wanted to cry. 20 minutes later another bus was casually blown my way and I got home.

The next day I rang the bus company to make a point. Not really a complaint as, I suppose, most drivers are actually customer friendly. I was connected to Customer relations and found myself talking to what I could only describe as the incarnation of a double-decker. The gentleman on the other end of the phone put his point across with the same diplomacy of a bus approaching jaywalkers (I am louder and bigger than you, so piss off). Not that his explanation didn’t make any sense, but a few sympathetic noises wouldn’t have gone amiss. (That’s what they thought me on those otherwise useless customer service courses!) At the end of the conversation we agreed that he would talk to the garage manager to encourage his drivers to slow down at that particular stop to help unfortunate passengers reduced to bus-stop-hopping by circumstances beyond the bus company’s control. The instant I put the receiver down I knew the bus made flesh had a mystical side, and thought he was hearing confessions thus keeping to a strict vow of secrecy.

The moral of the story? There isn’t one, really.

Pinzimonio