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Missing the bus
Oct. 12th, 2011 07:36 pmAnother Day, Another Dollar
I saw the bus rush right past the stop even as I ran to get there. The driver never hesitated; he saw no one at the stop and he flew into the right turn and was gone, with me left gazing at the advertising on the back. At that moment, I hated Smokey the Bear and hoped he burned in a forest fire lit by a cigarette thrown by a careless driver. Since most of the time a motivated turtle can outrun me, normally I got up early enough to stroll to the bus stop and be on time. Normally the bus was fifteen minutes late. So of course the day I'm five minutes late, the bus was right on time for the first time in the three months I'd used it.
I stood and gulped breath while I wondered what to do. The next bus arrived in two hours, and I could not afford to lose any time from work. Since I started student teaching, the boss cut me back to Saturdays. I was working the whole day, sure, but it was still a cut of four hours a week.
A job awaited me as soon as I got my teacher’s certificate. I just had to get through the next two months. My parents couldn’t help; Dad just lost his job and was getting unemployment. I was living with two other students in a duplex. They were scraping by just like I was. I had a student loan which would pay the rent, the dregs of my savings for gas and the utilities, but this job was paying for food. I couldn’t afford to miss so much as an hour. I was eating a lot of noodles as it was!
The bus had to run in a half-circle, hitting this same street in about a quarter mile. Running that quarter mile was the only chance I had to avoid eating cheap pasta three times a day for a week. I had not run that far since I got out of PE in high school. I can make it, I told myself. I have to.
I took a deep breath and started running. I ran out of sidewalk within about a hundred feet. Fortunately, the grass was not knee high here, and the morning was cool and crisp. Running on the grass slowed me a little, but finally I got to the strip mall, and there was sidewalk again. By this time the breath was burning in my throat, and I was heaving. I could see the bus approaching, and the image of monotonous meals helped me speed up.
The light was green as the bus approached the intersection. I kept running, but I was sure he would keep going like last time. All that work for nothing!
But this time I was in luck. This time, he had a stoplight and a left turn. The light went yellow, and the bus stopped. I made it across the street, and the door opened. Heaving, I dumped my coins in the box and trudged to a seat. Once I got to my stop, I still had a quarter mile walk to the store, where I would be on my feet all day, but I could live with that. I would get a full paycheck next week.
Another day, another dollar.
I saw the bus rush right past the stop even as I ran to get there. The driver never hesitated; he saw no one at the stop and he flew into the right turn and was gone, with me left gazing at the advertising on the back. At that moment, I hated Smokey the Bear and hoped he burned in a forest fire lit by a cigarette thrown by a careless driver. Since most of the time a motivated turtle can outrun me, normally I got up early enough to stroll to the bus stop and be on time. Normally the bus was fifteen minutes late. So of course the day I'm five minutes late, the bus was right on time for the first time in the three months I'd used it.
I stood and gulped breath while I wondered what to do. The next bus arrived in two hours, and I could not afford to lose any time from work. Since I started student teaching, the boss cut me back to Saturdays. I was working the whole day, sure, but it was still a cut of four hours a week.
A job awaited me as soon as I got my teacher’s certificate. I just had to get through the next two months. My parents couldn’t help; Dad just lost his job and was getting unemployment. I was living with two other students in a duplex. They were scraping by just like I was. I had a student loan which would pay the rent, the dregs of my savings for gas and the utilities, but this job was paying for food. I couldn’t afford to miss so much as an hour. I was eating a lot of noodles as it was!
The bus had to run in a half-circle, hitting this same street in about a quarter mile. Running that quarter mile was the only chance I had to avoid eating cheap pasta three times a day for a week. I had not run that far since I got out of PE in high school. I can make it, I told myself. I have to.
I took a deep breath and started running. I ran out of sidewalk within about a hundred feet. Fortunately, the grass was not knee high here, and the morning was cool and crisp. Running on the grass slowed me a little, but finally I got to the strip mall, and there was sidewalk again. By this time the breath was burning in my throat, and I was heaving. I could see the bus approaching, and the image of monotonous meals helped me speed up.
The light was green as the bus approached the intersection. I kept running, but I was sure he would keep going like last time. All that work for nothing!
But this time I was in luck. This time, he had a stoplight and a left turn. The light went yellow, and the bus stopped. I made it across the street, and the door opened. Heaving, I dumped my coins in the box and trudged to a seat. Once I got to my stop, I still had a quarter mile walk to the store, where I would be on my feet all day, but I could live with that. I would get a full paycheck next week.
Another day, another dollar.
