There Ain't No Devil, It's Just God When He's Drunk

Now, I like to think of myself as a very UN-hater...a lover, an optimist, and a good karmaist. But that being said, there are some things in life that I just HATE and can do nothing about. Two of them happened today.

1) Being trapped on the other side of the street when your bus arrives and not being able to run across to catch it because of cars of death that won't stop to let you make it. *&%"&£%&*$^ how I hate that! Since J-Walking isn't illegal in the UK (at least as far as I know), everyone just waits to dash across the road. At the hospital, the bus stop is conveniently directly across the road...across the very busy road...and while there is a crosswalk, it's about 25 yards up the road, meaning I would just be backtracking, and no one wants to do that.

2) Mixed car messages. This happened to me in the parking lot. It was a double lane and there were two cars coming my way. One of them looked like it was going to stop and let me go, the other was reving it's engine. When Car 1 rolled to a stop, I made like I was about to cross the street, but then Car 2 started reving it's engine, so I thought I would just let them pass instead, but then Car 1 was waving his hand for me to go, so I did, causing Car 2 to rev some more and then gun the engine when I was just a hairsbreadth out of his lane so he could jump in front of nice Car 1. And this was in a parking lot. Of a hospital. Where sick kids and people in wheelchairs and crutches walk/roll/hobble. Grrrrrrrrrrr...

Watch this space, I am sure that there will be plenty more life hates coming your way.

Public transportation is one of those wonderful inventions that can provide equal amounts of entertainment and agony. I personally love all forms of public transportation (minus that 11 hour bus ride from York to Heathrow that I paid with my soul in order to save £12) because of how unique it is in the States. Oh sure, you have places like Chicago and New York that have functional subways and trams, but for the most part, the US was designed with cars in mind, and the only people who take public transportation are the old, the cracked out crazy, the homeless, or all of the above- which really makes the whole 'look at me, I'm being green AND saving money AND being an all around better person than you, Mr Hummer2 yuppy!' pretentiousness aura not seem worthy. I've even had a friend who had a harrowing experience on a public bus which may have involved a gun. And the buses in the US (at least San Francisco) smell like urine and bad BO.

But Edinburgh has fantastic public transportation- they even (and I am sure this is the case all over the UK) give out FREE newspapers every morning to make your morning commute a little more interesting. And everyone loves free things! The buses don't smell, they come ever 5-10 minutes, and call me a Yank, but I can't get enough of sitting upstairs in a double decker.

That said, you still gets your moments of entertainment. My co-worker was telling me a bus story the other day. It was just after work and crowded to capacity, which means that trying to negotiate your way off and on to the bus is like an intricate dance of trying to make yourself 40lbs skinnier, not being rude and shoving, but also trying to make the doors before they snap shut. As my co-worker was making her way to the exit, her work satchel much have rubbed against a young man, because he turned to his partner and in a loud voice announced to the front of the bus that 'that lady just touched my nob!'. My co-worker, who has just spent a long 10 hour day dealing with idiots at the hospital said that she was over come with a moment of rage so fierce that she whipped around, and in a louder voice stated 'In your dreams, little man!' before realising what she had just done and fleeing the bus to the sound of uproarious laughter.

Today I had the opposite. A sparsely filled bus and the 'I can't shut the hell up' dude. This guy ( or gal) is generally 'one of those types' that is so involved with themselves and their own world that they are oblivious to those around them who are silently sending them telepathic death wishes. This guy could not stop talking on his mobile. In a VERY LOUD VOICE that made sure that all of us were privy to his conversation. First he had a long chat to his friend about needing to borrow money, and then how he was going to buy a lot of computer software (with borrowed money I suppose). Immediately after his friend hung up (and probably went off to stop his bleeding ears), he phoned up another person to demand why that person didn't answer their phone at 12, and then again at 5! The nerve! He then went on to whine about how the dance teachers are intimidated of him since he writes formal complaints against them (he was like 30something with a dark brown beard and waist length long bleached blonde hair who was doing dance at a community college apparently)...JEBUS, get OVER yourself.

But sadly, I have to leave the conversation to catch my next bus home.

Does anyone feel the urge to learn as much personal information about people when they're yapping away on their phones?

Have you ever noticed how the universe and buses seem to conspire against you when you just happen to have a moment of laziness?

I don't know about you, but this always seems to happen to me. There's somewhere I need to go and I can either walk or take the bus. Walking would take about 15 minutes- not bad at all, unless it happens to be pissing down rain, or I'm in heels, or I just feel I can't be bothered. So I'll go stand at the bus stop. Oh look, a bus should be coming in 3 minutes. So much faster to take the bus. Then 3 minutes go by. Then another 3. And another. Finally 10 minutes have passed and there is no sight of the bus.

By now I'm pretty annoyed because I know that if I had just sucked it up and walked, I would have probably have been where I wanted to go by now. So now I can either continue to wait for the bus, all the while knowing that I am going to be arriving later and later, or just start walking there and hope that I can walk faster than the bus can drive. Will the waiting for the bus now take more than 15 extra minutes? Should I just walk? Walking does burn calories. Oh, but I've waited this long, I'm sure the bus will be here shortly. And then there will be traffic. Which means I'll get there 5 minutes late. Or maybe if I just walked really fast I would burn off twice as many calories and beat the bus.

Naturally, the bus then comes along and I end up arriving at where I'm supposed to be at the exact same time that I probably would have arrived if I had walked.