Hack. Wheeze. Cough.
I write this in between coughing spasms. I've got a chest cold right now which, though winding down, still has my bronchial tubes in its icy grasp. And I just had to sprint to catch the 5:36 bus. Now I understand that you drivers have a schedule to keep, and that after all of the completely accepted bus delays caused by traffic, weather, breakdowns, and poorly-planned schedules, it would be unthinkable to jeopardize the precious schedule by actually letting somebody make their connection. I'm with you there. I feel you. I know it would have been terribly inconvenient to have left the door open, or stayed at the stop for ten more seconds, and I can certainly see how easy it would have been to completely miss all of the other riders yelling that there was another person coming. At least the door opened when I managed to make it all the way to the end of the platform, so that makes it okay. And I was luckier than the family that stood outside the bus, asking to get on and ignored for the full minute or so we waited to pull out of the park and ride lot.
"You should've been at the platform on time" was my greeting.
A quick glance at my cell phone says it's 5:35.
I want to ride the bus more often, I really do. My commute is 30 miles long by freeway, and traffic generally decides whether that drive is a hellish grind, or merely a waste of a half hour. When I'm driving, I can't really do anything else. The time is lost. Time on public transit can at least be spent productively banging out whiny livejournal posts or reading up my Dresden. I haven't been riding that often lately, though. Neither of my endpoints is in downtown Seattle, so there really aren't that many daily trips that will get me where I'm going (and nothing that doesn't involve switching buses). And forget about it on days that I get caught late at work. I want to ride the bus more often, but unfortunately it's seldom convenient, often unreliable, and on days like today, completely frustrating.
Yeah, I'm bitching. It'll be all better once I stop coughing, I'm sure. I'll get home and forget completely about this. And look, there's my connection, pulling out just as we pull into the transit center. So I'll be able to forget a half hour later than planned, after I catch the next bus. At least it's a nice balmy 45F out here. And doesn't that feel good on damaged lungs.