"Bugged" Umbrellas?
I am a regular rider of the "242" bus that goes from our neighborhood in Seattle to Redmond. I can't say enough about how great that route is in that it happens to connect where I live and where I work in a fairly east manner, and eliminates me from having to drive on 520, which should just be blown up and re-built from scratch.
Riding the bus allows me to catch up on e-mail/work, read a book/magazine, sleep or text message a friend (or two if my fingers are really up for it). :-) I avoid talking on the phone while on the bus at all costs. I tend to be in my own world on the bus as I either have a list of things I want to do on the bus, or I want to sleep. Either way, I am not too focused on what is going on around me.
Bus drivers have a very tough job. An example I'll give is that they drive these very big machines and navigate all sorts of idiots on the road. Buses share express lanes with cars carrying 3 or more people on a certain stretch of 520. Combine that with the express lane also being the merge lane on and off the highway, and you have all of the makings of a disaster waiting to happen.
[BTW, as I am typing this ON THE BUS, there is a leak in one of the windows so I am kind of getting rained on - but hey - it's all good.]
As the bus is moving along at a decent clip, you will see cars trying to merge on. On at least one occasion per day, you will see someone in their fancy sports car trying to beat the bus by trying to merge on to the highway just ahead of the oncoming bus. The bus driver is then forced to hit the breaks and hopefully no one goes flying forward as a result.
The reason I am talking about the bus today is that a wacky thing happened today. I am one of the last people to be dropped off on my way into work. I noticed someone left an umbrella on one of the seats, so on my way off of the bus I decided to hand over the umbrella to the driver. I probably said something like this as I was getting off, "thanks, someone left this umbrella and have a nice day".
A couple of hours later, I get an e-mail from Marc entitled "bus today" that states:
Did you turn in an umbrella?
Now people leave stuff on the bus all of the time. I have left stuff on the bus and lost a couple of cellphones along the way. It is not newsworthy enough to tell Marc that , "hey I found a lost umbrella and guess what, I gave it to the bus rider!". So I am sitting in a meeting and wondering, "how in the world did he know about the umbrella?"
Some of the insane things going through my head include a James Bond like device that is tracking my every move. I'm thinking, "Did I marry a secret agent who thought I would divulge his not-so-secret love of M&Ms? Did he BUG the umbrella and have it placed on the bus as a way to see if I would flap about his disdain for not eating his own kind?"
[More BTW - Picture me making weird faces during this meeting trying to figure out what in the world is going on. OK - my own fault for multi-tasking.]
Turns out that one of Marc's friends, Matt L., is a King County bus driver who recognized me as I was getting off of the bus. I forgot this little factoid, and it was compounded by the fact that I only met Matt and his wife, Leslie, once. In fairness, I would say he is my friend but you can't claim someone as a friend if you don't recognize them. There's gotta be a rule on that somewhere.
Matt was incredibly cool about my lack of recognition and my embarassing social gaffe, but I'll now make a public apology- Sorry Matt!
I'll conclude with a thanks to Matt and his many colleagues for braving the roads to get Marc and I to/from work safely. We really appreciate it and hope that more people get on the mass transit bandwagon in the Puget Sound area. The roads are way too crowded.
Is it Friday yet?
P.S. -- Also another shout-out to Neil, who had some minor surgery today (can you use the words 'minor' and 'surgery' consecutively?). Hope you feel better!