the bus ride
In an effort to promote the use of public transit, certain bus routes offered free service last week. In an attempt to see more of the city for free, Raspberry and I excitedly headed out with an ambitious plan to ride on three different routes last Friday. Little did we know that our plan would be quashed rather quickly.
We were standing on a corner waiting for the lights to change when we saw the C3 and C5 speed right by us, so we picked up the C4 which appeared to be running late. As we settled into the ride, with Raspberry on my lap since the bus was busy, we marvelled at parts of the university campus we hadn't yet been to and oooh'ed and ahhh'ed as the bus swiftly travelled to the edge of the city centre and beyond. We sat next to a nice older lady who started chatting with Raspberry until some seats freed up and we moved. That's probably when the trouble started. By this time, the bus was traversing smaller neighbourhood streets, winding and turning with the kind of haste exhibited by a driver who was running ten minutes late.
At this point, I should mention how I'm quite prone to motion sickness. I don't do well on long distance trips on cars and buses, and I especially don't do well when it's stuffy, the vehicle is travelling fast and making lots of turns. And this is exactly what was happening on the bus. I had given up trying to enjoy the view and to take pictures because I was starting to feel rather shitty. As luck would have it, the bus reached the end of the line in Dingle Mount [snicker] and everyone got off, us included. We walked about twenty metres to the bus stop, waiting for a bus, maybe that same bus, to show up. I wasn't feeling too hot at this point but the fresh air was doing me some good. We should've just waited for another bus (which happened to be right behind) but I stupidly rushed us back onto the same bus when it pulled up at the stop, mostly because I wanted to get home as soon as possible. Also, Raspberry said she had to pee. Great, just great.
I thought the trip back would be simple but that would just be too easy, wouldn't it? Instead, it took a ridiculously circuitous path, going over some of the same streets that we had just been on to get to the end of the line. It didn't help that Raspberry insisted on sitting right at the very back (where it's the bumpiest) and I wasn't in the mood to argue with her so I gave in. In retrospect, I should've argued, because if I did, then what eventually happened might not have happened.
The winding route wasn't doing Raspberry any favours either and feeling sick too, she put her head down in my lap. While the bus criss-crossed the heart of the city centre, she briefly fell asleep and sometime around then, I had the irrepressible urge to throw up. No matter how much I tried to send it back down, it was insistent on coming back up. And finally, it did. For a block or two, I sat with puke filling my cheeks because I had no idea what to do; I didn't have a plastic bag or anything like that on me and I certainly wasn't about to let it all out into my messenger bag. And I couldn't even tell Raspberry that we really had to get off so I picked her drowsy self up and was naturally met with protests. Unable to keep it in any longer, I put my head down and spewed in the corner, some of it splashing onto my shoes to give it character. I don't suppose it helped that I had had soup for lunch. With the hydrochloric acid burning my throat and my mouth, I felt infinitely better. I'm not sure if anyone actually saw me, as we were tucked away in the corner at the back of the bus and Raspberry was in my lap. As the bus mostly emptied at a busy stop and more people got on, I debated getting off too and making the twenty-minute trek home on foot. However, Raspberry was not adequately dressed to battle the wind, so we stayed on the bus and switched seats, away from the bumpiness of the back seat. Yeah, definitely not my proudest moment. As the bus finally pulled up to our stop, with much relief I turned to Raspberry and said, "let's never do that again," and she heartily agreed. What we'd thought to be an easy circular ride around the city centre turned out to be an excruciating hour-long trip. This was the story of the first and last time we rode this particular bus route and possibly this particular bus service.