Week 2

Workday for me today, hence Life in the Bus Lane continues........

Left work at 16.20 and got a sense of deja-vu as was waiting to cross the road at the end of the driveway when my favourite blue and orange passenger vehicle came trundling over the brow of the hill.

I wasn't going to be deja-vu'd this Monday, however, and daringly legged it across the road with my hand out all the way across, quite prepared to throw myself in front of the damned thing if necessary.  I may have done a sort of sideways skipping movement, like in aerobics (I would have preferred to do 'the grapevine' for presentation points but didn't think I had time for all that fancy footwork).  So it was a sideways lollop, with my hand defiantly stretched outwards, right from the other side of the road.

I embarked, and requested a return ticket to the local town, and jiggled the assortment of silver I had in my hand, having not been completely certain of the cost last time.

£3.10, said the burly bus driver.  I could feel the eyes of the other passengers boring into me as if to will me to hurry up as I was holding up their journey.  But I didn't have enough in my little hand of silver, although I had thought that I had covered every possible computation...i.e. 50p's, 20p's and 10p's. 

'Is that right?' Mr Burly asked as I rummaged for my purse to extract more silver.
'No, it's effing well not', I resisted the urge to retort, knowing damn well it wasn't that much previously, and all too aware of the other passengers' glares burning into my very being. Plus, I have, as you are aware, been brought up not to cause arguments or upset others.

I paid, apologising to Mr Burly for not having the correct extortionately overpriced fare to hand, and took a seat, staring straight ahead and not making eye contact with any other passengers.  I did glance to the left to see whether Sidney the Snail had returned from his sojourn to the Vertilap fence as we zoomed past - but no sign, so obviously the Retirement Home for Snails is where he now resides.  I cursed myself for not checking the Vampire House next door at No.75 though, and vowed to have a look at the curtain situation on the return journey.

Bumping along on the journey, I calculated in my mind that a single costs £1.30, therefore a return should cost no less than £2.60.  I'd been robbed.  In broad daylight.  Hey-ho.....let's just buy this pint of milk for the white sauce for the lasagne and get home.  Yes, I know - the most expensive pint of milk in the world.

I arrived at the bus stop and squinted at the timetable between the cracked plastic where an irate passenger had seemingly punched the timetable.  I felt a sense of empathy for this poor misguided traveller.  Or non-traveller, as it would appear, according to the punched timetable.

A twenty minute wait ensued before the next bus. Now this road was busier than Sidney's street, therefore there was a veritable plethora of vehicles coming past me, standing forlorn but not quite yet broken, at the bus stop.  Most of them looked.  The gits.  And, I discovered this evening, that it's the passengers that look at you more smugly than the drivers.  Well of course they would, this makes perfect sense, as they are obviously thinking 'I have a lift, and you don't, ha ha ha ha ha'.

Eventually, here it came...and guess who was driving it? Mr Burly.  He didn't even make a tear in my return ticket, obviously realising he had massively overcharged me earlier.

Rustling in my cavernous bag for my house keys, I almost missed Gandalf disembarking a couple of stops later, or I would have asked for his autograph.  How did I not see him when I got on the bus?  And to think he lives locally!

Looking to my right, I noticed a well-dressed elderly gentleman with a rather ornate walking stick.  I resisted the urge to comment that I bet he had a fair few notches on it.  Possibly sensing this, he got off at the very next stop.

Work to home - having detoured to purchase one pint of milk for my white sauce - took a mere 41 minutes.

Once home, I rifled through my second-to-none filing system (read 'none') for last week's return ticket and I HAVE BEEN OVERCHARGED BY ONE ENGLISH POUND!!!!

Outrageous! The return cost me £2.10 a week ago.

So beware - learn from my mistakes and 'always' know the correct fare for your journey.

Time to put that £3.78 pint of milk to good use..........:)