I'll be home for Christmas

[austin_dern]

After all that excitement we got up pretty near our usual time the next day, last Thursday, in order to travel to my ancestral homeland and spend New Year's with my family. We had found a tolerable airfare for the trip, but it would be leaving out of Detroit, and we didn't care to leave either car in long-term parking there. Fortunately there's a bus, the Michigan Flyer, which runs every other hour from East Lansing to Detroit airport. We got reservations for it, and we set off for that using one of the Capital Area's buses. Or we meant to. We were waiting by the bus stop, and waiting, and finally noticed we had about fifteen minutes to get to the Flyer's stop and as we were about to despair that we'd get a bus at all, the bus to the bus came.

The alarming thing was that we might be just minutes late for the Flyer. I held out the optimistic hope they might get started late, which bunny_hugger said they don't do. She called their office and explained we were arriving soon; they said they could hold the bus, for one minute. We'd take it. We got off the bus and charged through Downtown East Lansing for the Flyer's stop, which involved also kind of technically speaking jaywalking but that's all right because it's a college town and it distracts the drivers a lot more when people aren't darting suddenly into traffic heedless of the lights. But we were getting nearly to the corner for the Flyer's stop when we saw it turning and heading off into traffic.

I ran across the street and waved the driver down, and banged on the side of the bus, and mercifully, he did stop. He also scolded me for doing this, explaining that he saw us coming, and that banging the side of a bus is a good way to get into an accident. However, he let us on, safe and sound, and we got to ride with a bit of exhausted giddiness to the airport. Well, I was slightly giddy about this. bunny_hugger was embarrassed by the looks she got from the passengers who'd been on time. I hadn't looked at them.

Trivia: The last thing George Washington is known to have written in his own hand was the weather record of the 13th of December, 1799. Source: The Grand Idea: George Washington's Potomac and the Race to the West, Joel Achenbach.

Currently Reading: Gold Unicorn, Tanith Lee.

PS: What Is The Most Common Jeopardy! Response? --- something I did not know until I read someone else's work, so I want to talk that up a little bit.

Comments

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

I found this whole thing quite upsetting actually, especially because I don't deal well with feeling yelled at, even though technically it was you who got yelled at.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry. I didn't think it was a very serious yelling-at, but I was actually a bit giddy at having beaten our schedule crash and gotten the bus after all.

[bunny-hugger.livejournal.com]

Whenever someone responds to a timid "I'm sorry" with "I should think so," it is a sign of a pretty earnest telling off.

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

I suppose so. But I was too glad we were on the bus to feel told off.

[xolo.livejournal.com]

banging the side of a bus is a good way to get into an accident.

What? Was his bus so cheap and crummy that you might knock it off course and cause a wreck by beating it with your fists?

[austin-dern.livejournal.com]

Well, I did run across traffic, and I could imagine easily slipping under the rear wheel.