Bus Symphony

Reasons for which every year I pay $1 or $2 more for my monthly Montreal metro/bus pass:

1. so that the bus driver can brake and accelerate at least twice as often as needed and in the process cause sometimes numerous bumps and even falls among people who are standing, spills of grocery bags, escapes of strollers.
1.1. for example: bus drivers often accelerate over the 10 feet that separate the bus station from the nearest intersection, only to brake abruptly at the white line because the light is still red.
1.2. or, once the light has turned green, to accelerate over the remaining few feet that separate the bus from the next station where it must again brake abruptly, sometimes causing the person that stands patiently in front of the back door waiting to get off to lose balance to the point of not managing to recover in time to get off the bus.

2. so that the bus driver can simply skip a stop because Oh! he didn't realise a passenger has ringed the bell and wishes to get off; sometimes they even blame the passenger for ringing the bell too late for the driver to decelerate (this often happens together with 1.2).
2.1. so that the driver can see you running to catch the bus and takes off as soon as the light turns green and before you managed to reach it, even if you only had a few more feet to go.

3.(one of my favorites, and which actually happened to me) so that the driver, instead of taking the turn which separates the #171 trajectory from the #121 trajectory, continues straight ahead for about 1 km, until I walk up to her and ask why she hasn't turned at the right spot so that I could get home as usual. At which point she exclaims that I'm right, and that she's so sorry and that she usually drives the #121 and that she is tired (it was around 10pm) and forgot she was now driving the #171 and just continued along the #121 trajectory. Oh my, and now she has to find a place to turn back and oh boy she will fall behind on the schedule and people will be waiting at the stops and she is so sorry once again. This is how it came about that on an otherwise normal evening, the people living immediately on the south side of Cote-Vertu bvd., between Marcel-Laurin bvd. and Cavendish bvd., saw for the first time a #171 STM bus pass in front of their houses.

4. so the drivers can drive through Montreal as if on a race track, sometimes doing 80 km/h, because, well, I don't know why. The underground bus racing scene in Montreal, secretely run by the Italian mafia.
4.1. sometimes drivers take dangerous turns, often cross intersections on yellow (especially at night) and I have seen some almost run over pedestrians (admittedly, pedestrians do give a lot of points).

5. so that, no matter when I get off the metro after 9pm (when the buses run less often), there can never be a bus waiting or arriving soon. Even if I run up the stairs, I look at the schedules to see that a bus has just passed 1 or 2 minutes before, sometimes a little longer. Why can't the STM time those buses that do run by Cote-Vertu metro (be it even every 30 minutes) with a metro arrival? Why is that so hard? They do it at Sauve metro (although even there you have to dash up the stairs at top speed and even then you only have about 2 out of 3 to catch the bus that was "timed" to that metro), so why don't they do it at the Cote-Vertu station, where it is even more needed as there are more passengers.

6. so that, within a two weeks of the implementation of the new electronic ticket machines on buses, I already see two broken ones. And naturally, whether the machine is broken or not, neither the driver nor the machine can ever give change; always got to have exact change, to the penny (except it doesn't accept pennies of course; pennies are meant to forever live and reproduce in people's wallets). And you can't cheat anymore like with the old glass boxes: the machine weighs and counts the coins you slide in. Except when the machine is broken :)

7. so that you can wait 2 hours for a bus that was supposed to come every 30 minutes, because there is too much snow in the street and none of the buses can climb the little hill just before the turn that would finally bring one of them to you. And then you finally decide to take a taxi, the cost of which the STM does not reimburse.

8. let's not leave out the metro; the metro is so very tempting to suicidal souls; I take the metro roughly twice a day and last fall, either a suicide, an accident or some technical difficulties (some parts of the Montreal metro are over 40 years old) has caused service interruptions during my travels about once a week, sometimes more. When the service resumes, the recorded message thanks the clients for their understanding, but never ever apologises, not even for the technical problems; why? whose fault are they? Interestingly, there seem to be less problems in winter.

And if we believe the rumors:

9. so that the STM mechanics can work as little as half the hours they are paid for, thus hugely increasing STM costs. Enough said.

Finally, I wish to show my appreciation for some (very few) drivers, like the one who used to sometimes drive the #165 bus down Cote-des-Neiges and who always said hi, smiled and had a little bowl with candy for passengers.

Note: STM = Societe de transport de Montreal.

original version:

"Il fait presque chaud. Je me taille les ongles sur le perron. Une fourmi fonce sur une rognure, tourne autour, la ramasse, l'abandonne, la reprend et part avec. Je me sens volée."

translation:
"The weather is almost warm. I am trimming my nails on the porch. An ant rushes towards a clipping, walks around it, picks it up, drops it, picks it up again and leaves with it. I feel robbed."

by Carmen Lalonde; text published in the La Presse newspaper.

The four minutes before bedtime

Today Google failed me. I called my friend who has recently graduated with a B.Sc. in psychology. I said to her:
- Anna, Google failed me. I don't know what to do.
There was a short silence. Then:
- Honey, you realise Google is just a search engine, don't you? Oh, nevermind. Just tell me what happened.
I hesitated and then layed out the difficult words:
- All right, so, I googled 'What am I going to do with my life', and...
- And what happened then?
- Well, it crashed.

Timmy learns about sex

Timmy is five years old and yesterday he witnessed something strange. Today he goes to his mother and asks shyly:
- Mommy, what were you and Daddy doing yesterday?
- Well, Timmy, mommy was about to have a... Timmy, you love ice cream don't you?
- Oh yeah!
- All right. Now imagine you were standing in front of the window of the ice cream truck, and the ice cream man holds out an ice cream cone for you...
Timmy interrupts:
- For free?
- Uh... yes Timmy, for free. Now imagine that ten other kids are eating their ice cream cones near you. It makes you really want to have your own too, doesn't it?
- Yeah, I want ice cream too!
- All right. Now the ice cream man holds your cone very close to you, you can almost touch it. You reach out to grab it, but he pulls it away just a little bit so that you cannot grab it. Meanwhile the other kids standing nearby are licking their ice cream, saying "Hmmmm!" and looking very happy about licking their ice cream. Now you really really want your ice cream cone so you can eat some too. But the ice cream man just moves it in front of you, a little too far, so you can't touch it. The kids are really loving their ice cream, the man keeps your cone too far and you hold out your hand but you can't have it. The kids really love their ice cream and are saying "Hmmm!". The man brings the cone closer to you and you can almost touch it. In fact you can touch the cone with your fingertips! But then he pulls his hand and the ice cream cone back inside the truck, sits at the steering wheel and drives away. That's what was happening to mommy yesterday, and it was when Timmy walked in the room that the ice cream man drove away.
Timmy frowns and thinks about this for a few seconds. Then, in a shaky voice:
- Mommy, did...
- Yes Timmy.
- Did... did Timmmy scare the ice cream man away?
Mommy sighs and says:
- Yes. Yes honey, you did.