Smile!!

Okay, so here's another bus ride epiphany for you.

I'm getting ready for work one morning and feeling pretty daring. Usually my work attire is a pair of pants and whatever shirt I own that isn't wrinkled. This day however, I decided that since the weather has been unexpectedly nice I'd wear a skirt. I even put on a little lipstick. Yeah BABY!! I'm workin' it now!

So I'm feeling pretty fly. That is, until I step outside. Not only is it frigidly cold but it's also raining torrentially. Picture Noah's Ark. And wouldn't you know it me without an umbrella. Of all the luck.

So of course, I don't have time to change, just run back in and grab the first umbrella I saw. Turns out it was one of those collapsible contraptions that flips inside out if you breathe too hard.

Now I'm standing at the bus stop shivering and soaked looking hopefully up the street for the bus. I've got my dollar out and everything, because I just KNOW the bus is going to show up any minute. Well it didn't. In fact it didn't show up for several minutes. The darn thing was ten minutes late and I was only 3 minutes from hypothermia and frostbite. (That'll teach me to control my girlish urges to dress up! I'll take warm and frumpy over frozen and cute any day!)

Needless to say at this point that my disposition is steadily wilting, just like the once crisp dollar bill I held in my frost covered fingers. Well the bus finally comes and I practically jump through the door dripping and shaking and veerrry close to causing outright mayhem in a public place.

So I'm trying to force my soggy dollar into the farebox and it just wouldn't work. I'm holding up the line and people are shifting in their seats. But what do I care! The bus was already late, a few more seconds ain't gonna kill ya! It was at this point that the bus driver said, very loudly and with MUCH attitude, "Could you please put your umbrella down so you don't get ME soaked?"

WHAT!!!???

My mind did one of those skips like an old CD. Mentally I just got stuck at that moment trying to figure out if this heifer really did say this to me. After she was LATE!! I think I slipped into one of those parallel bizzaro universes where everything is just plain backwards.

Some people just don't exercise wisdom. I'm already on the edge here. I'm about 2 seconds away from forcing this bus into oncoming traffic just to warm my hands in the blaze of the resulting explosion!

I was in a downward spiral and didn't care who I took with me!! I wanted to take my piece of crap umbrella and shove it down her nasty attitude having, warm and toasty sweater wearing, THROAT! But...(taking a deep breath to calm down here. WWOOOOOSSSSSAAAAHHH!!!) being the Christian that I am, I did none of these things. Suffice it to say, however, I gave the umbrella a good and vigorous shake before I put it down and found a dollar the machine would take. I'll repent Sunday.

I went to my seat thinking, "Whatever happened to customer service?" Hey, nobody forced her to be a bus driver. I mean, if you don't like the job then, by all means, quit!! Should the rest of us have to suffer from the bitterness you have over wasting your life in a dead end job. I THINK NOT!

All I'm saying is: Smile, people. The life you save could be your own!