Bus ride from Hell!

Okay, "Hell" might be pushing it. But it was no Seven Heavens, no Arcadia... hell, it wasn't even Limbo. Maybe Acheron? Yeah, Acheron...

So I'm going down the escalators of the Ballston station and before I can even get to the gates, there's a sea of people mulling around. If you've ever taken Metro, that's Not a Good Sign. Then the announcement came.

Trains backed up. Both directions. Broken choo choo at Clarendon. A constipated man's bowels will move before the Orange Line will.

So I'm walking back up the escalator thinking I'll put in a half day or something, and then I remembered the 38B. This bus route pretty much mimics the path of the Orange Line downtown, only it's aboveground.

Sure nuff, by the time I get topside, the 38B's packed to capacity. Thankfully, another one comes 15 minutes later, and I'm one of the first in line.

So the bus is packed tighter than a brick shithouse, but we're on our way. That is, until we get to the first scheduled stop. What happened next is so surreal (well, as far as surreal shit happens to me) that I wouldn't believe it if even one of my closest friends told me.

We're at the stop, which just happens to be right before a stoplight. People outside are banging on the bus to get in, and the driver's naturally trying to tell them there's no room. Well, this wasn't good enough for one woman. She decided to stand in front of the bus.

Yes. You read that right. She stood. in. front. of. the. bus. Playing chicken with about 5 tons of steel (that's a guess. I've no damned idea how much a bus weighs). The bus driver was growing more and more exasperated. "Lady, where am I gonna put you?!? The bus is full!"

The fact that someone would get all Tienanmen Square over her commute is just astounding. To the point where she'd risk life and limb just to get to work (either getting run over, or getting ripped limb from limb by a busload of GS-12s). There's only one job I can think of right now that would make me that desperate to come to work, and truth be told, I'm really not that keen on finding out if they have sex in Heaven.

Meanwhile, there's another woman tapping on the windows trying to get on. How tapping on the side windows is gonna help, I don't know. The bus windows sure as hell don't roll down, and she wasn't svelte enough to pull a Luke and Bo in any event. For some weird reason she was trying to plead her case to the passengers, as if busting out riffs from her 10th grade persuasive speaking class is gonna make people's bodies, I dunno, have less mass or something so she can squeeze in (through the window).

Eventually, someone on the bus got fed up and got off so Ms. Molly Makeapoint could get on. Thanks dude! You definitely took one for the team, and I hope you win the lottery soon :)

The actual bus ride itself was fairly painless after that (except for some stupid person who had to yammer on her cell phone about OMG how totally messed up is this the entire ride to her multiple vacuous friends). And since we were already running late, we shaved off some time coming through Georgetown only because it was past 9:30 at that point.

Years ago, Greyhound had a commercial jingle that ended with "Don't Miss the Bus!" I think this woman took that message just a little too far :)