The Tangled Webs We Weave...

You know that my life must be extremely uneventful or my mind is mush when I pull out the old stuff, but here you go, another thing I had written about before that will likely be new to most.

January 30th, 2003

I was forced to take the bus back and forth to work this week because I had failed to pay for a speeding ticket. The Ministry of Transportation suspended my license and I was extremely embarrassed and humiliated. While travelling on the buses,I encountered a very talkative bus driver.

Day number two (Tuesday Jan 28, 2003): I flagged down a different bus because I thought it might be the one that would drop me off in front of my apartment. I didn’t think that I could catch the bus that goes by my place…and the day before had taken one that left me walking miles to my destination (uphill both ways in a blizzard with holes in my boots). When the driver stopped, I asked before I got on the bus, if he was going West. He smiled and looked at me quizzically because of course he was going that way...what other way could he be going, given the direction the bus was facing. To explain my stupidity I muttered something about being a newbie to the Mississauga buses and quickly sat down in the first seat so that I would not further embarrass myself by falling when he took off. He was smiling at me and I noticed how good looking he was...what a treat, a good looking, friendly, talkative bus driver. Hmmm, taking the bus isn’t so bad after all.

"Do you normally drive to work?"

"Yes." In my mind I was thinking the conversation would end here, but he was curious.

"Why aren’t you driving now?"

"Uhmmm, my car is getting fixed. I should have it by the end of the week."

"Wow, it must be something major, what’s wrong with it?"

"Well, uh let’s just say I didn’t take care of it."

My mind is racing trying to think of what his next question would be so that I could be prepared. The whole time I was hoping that I would answer him enough so that the interrogation would stop. He laughed at my last response and kept prodding.

"What do you mean you didn’t take care of it?"

I giggled and responded, "Well...you know, doesn’t the oil fill itself up automatically?"

Wrong answer. With an incredulous look on his face he blurts out loudly, "You burned the engine out?!?"

"Uhmm, well...not really sure that it’s that serious, they are doing the preliminary checking right now, it might not be too bad."

"What was happening to your car?"

"It was making a loud clicking noise."

"What do you drive?"

"A Toyota Corolla."

"What year?"

"2000."

"You burned a motor out of a new car?!?"

"Well, like I said they don’t know what the damage is yet, it might not be that bad."

"Is it a standard?"

"Yes."

"You might as well phone them up and tell them to throw a new clutch in too, cause women do not know how to drive a standard."

"Pardon?!? I beg to disagree, but I KNOW how to drive a standard."

"No you don’t."

"Yes I do."

"No you don’t."

Now we are both laughing.

"I bet when you are driving and in between shifting gears you probably have your foot resting on the clutch pedal."

"Well...hovering."

"You aren’t supposed to do that you know. And most people do that and don’t know that it’s very bad on the clutch."

Turns out that prior to driving the bus, he drove transport trucks for years and is quite mechanically inclined when it comes to automobiles.

Ok, so here is my synopsis of what just happened. I get on a bus with a really cute, friendly driver. Within a matter of minutes, I portray myself as a dumb, ignorant, ditsy broad because I was too embarrassed to admit to a stranger that my license had been suspended. First of all, he probably would have sympathized with me if I had explained it was a speeding ticket…instead there is a man that I don’t even know, probably sharing my story with his buddies and laughing at ‘women’ drivers. I do apologize to all the women out there…I did a huge disservice to our gender!