the many, many gadget-keyboard-related typos are corrected for legibility’s sake:

my bus got lost. we’re in a tiny parking lot at 61st just barely west of stoney and we’re TOTALLY stuck
this is fabulous
articulated busses are FUN!
HOORAY FOR NIQUI!
niqui should get off and walk
we’ve got like eight guys trying to direct the poor driver
no way, this is way more fun than work
even with a gadget keyboard
but you are missing out
awwww…he got out
direct him back!
me is!
he keeps asking advice
the bus gps “you’re off your route” thing is really angry
* wasy stares blankly
aww.. we’re on stoney. in in a few, unless we get lost again

so. yeah. this was fabulous. we had a swanky brand-new articulated bus again this morning. for some reason, the display was broken and was displaying “103rd st. garage,” but he stopped at my stop and announced the bus number, so i got on. typically, this was the first #2 in the 40 minutes i’d been waiting, and there was another #2 directly behind it.

initially i had thought this was going to be my commute story for this morning, but it was overshadowed by later events — the entire time i was waiting, there was this incredibly dissatisfied woman waiting at my stop with me. she was there before i got there, actually, although i don’t know if she was talking until i got close or not. she kept ranting and ranting, and i couldn’t actually tell if she was talking to herself or to me, because i was standing there with my headphones on (which are large, cover-your-entire-ear headphones, not wee little ones that you wouldn’t notice). but she was really unhappy. at one point she boarded a #62, waited a minute, then got off, yelling incoherently at the driver even as he drove off and away — shouting after the bus. and then she kept talking. she was ranting about how “they” (i’m not clear on who “they” are) are just like children who never learned the difference between lying and perjury, and they have no manners either, and Mayor Richard M Daley The Second really ought to have all this dumped on his desk, not that he’d be bothered to do anything about it, and so on and so forth. she was really into her rant, whatever it was about. the only time i was sure she was really talking to me was when she asked if i had a light. anyways, finally, at like 9:35 — when i’ve just about given up hope on the #2 ever getting there, and there haven’t even been any #6s, although there had been at least a half dozen #62s, a couple of #29s, and a couple #36s, those being all the busses that serve my stop, and she has shown no interest in any of them other than the shouty #62 — she flounces to her feet dramatically, announces “I’m going home!” and storms off south down state. then the #2 pulled up.

everything was uneventful until the bus driver blew past 60th — he was obviously new, as he’d had to ask whether he turned north or south on stoney island — and rather than going down to 63rd, which is what i was just about to tell him when he turned, he turned right onto 61st, which is a residential area with tight streets… and then turned right onto a street that dead-ended into two parking lots. two tight parking lots.

i said, “well, that lot [meaning the university lot] will let you back out onto 60th, but i don’t think you can maneuver around it.” he took this as his cue to turn into the other parking lot, instead of just backing back out onto 61st. which, y’know, almost certainly would have been a better plan.

the parking lot he chose was at the base of a mid-rise apartment building, but also had church busses and stuff in it… and it was really crowded. we cleared the turn into the lot okay, and the first turn was okay too (narrowly missed a church bus), but the third turn was … well … problematic.

it took us at least 20 minutes just to get out of there, with like eight IBEW guys helping direct the driver and moving their cars around so he could make wider turns and stuff. for the most part, we were stuck on that embankment i moblogged. by the time we finally got out, that whole section of the bus side was all messed up.

it was very exciting! i quite enjoyed myself, as did, i think, my two co-passengers.