Strange trip
Feb. 26th, 2003 09:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
plutherusI am scheduled for a 9am meeting at work. With my boss' boss. Very important meeting, I can't be late. To get to work by 9am means I have to leave the apartment by 7:30.
I set the alarm for 6:30, set up the coffee maker, and go to bed.
Alarm goes off. I sleep through it. Secondary alarm goes off at 7, which wakes me up. (I love this alarm clock specifically for that feature!)
Later than I'd hoped, but still plenty of time. I pour myself a cup of copy, settle down to read the morning news. See something in someone's journal I absolutely *must* reply to, and before I realize it, it's 7:30. Shit. Run through the shower, get dressed, out the door at 7:45. No time to walk down to the cable cars, gotta take the bus. No bus. BART leaves at 8:14, and it takes the bus 24 minutes to get there.
I wait.
And wait some more. Where the hell is it? Normally they run every five minutes in the morning.
Contemplate taking a taxi, step out to wave one down. It stops, and the people in front of me get it instead.
Then the bus arrives. It is now 7:55. If some of the stops are empty, I might make it to the BART by 8:14. But just barely.
We stop at the first stop. We stop at the second stop. Traffic is bad. The bus is crowded. I don't usually get on it this early, so I miss San Francisco rush hour traffic normally. Now I see that was a good plan.
We stop at the next stop. The driver gets up and lowers the ramp so an old lady in a walker can board. OK, I'm doomed. Oh, well. So I pull out a book and start reading it. No sense worrying now, right?
Then the bus goes again. And goes. I notice that it hasn't seemed to stop for a while. I look out, and notice we're on Bush street, not Sacramento. Crap, am I on the wrong bus? How'd that happen? I thought the #1 was the only one that stopped where I got on.
We're still going the right direction, just three blocks down from where I expected to be going. And we're still not stopping. What the hell?
Finally, we do stop. Three blocks from the BART station. It turns out, I was on the express to downtown. I didn't know there was an express! Why didn't someone tell me there was an express? I get out and check the time. It's 8:12. I might make it after all! I run the two blocks, get into BART and my ticket doesn't work. It goes into the machine, then says "see agent". I run to the agent's booth. No agent around. Crap.
So, I buy another ticket. Get through the gate, head towards the escalator. It's going the wrong way. Normally it goes down. Today, of course, it's going up. Circle around to the stairs, get through the stream of people coming up them, and arrive on the platform to see the train pulling away. I check the time. 8:14.
Crap.
Find a bench, sit down, start to pull out the computer and the headphones. Then hear the speaker "Pittsburg/Bay Point Train now arriving on platform 2". Huh? That's my train! It's two minutes late! Hooray! I'm saved! I'll be at work at 8:52.
Board the train. Get out the computer, plug in the headphones, settle back to watch a DVD. All is well with the world. Train rolls along. Somewhere after the West Oakland station it stops. Another announcement. "Due to mechanical troubles with a train ahead of us, we will be waiting here for 15 minutes." Fifteen minutes late. That'll put me at work at 9:07. Crap again.
Oh, well, nothing for it now. I put the headphones back on, rewind the movie a bit, and start watching Tom Hanks talking about Apollo 11. The train goes. Then stops. Then goes. Then stops. In three years of riding BART, this is the longest delay I've ever had. Figures.
Finally it goes. No idea how long the delay was. Pull into Walnut Creek station, and I check the time. 8:53. Can that be right? That'll put us in Pleasant Hill at 8:59. And it does. I get off the train, it's 8:59. I run to the turnstyle. My ticket says "see agent" when I try to push it through. What? Aaagh!! Oh - wrong ticket. OK, I put the new one through. Get through, run across the street to work. The elevator's there. Ride it to the sixth floor. The doors open at 9:01am. I can't believe it. I'm gonna be only a minute late. That's not late at all, that's within a sigma of clock! Yay!
I get to my cube to drop everything off. Turn, and our department Admin comes over. "Oh, Pat, Sue was looking for you." "Yeah, we got a meeting now," I say hurriedly, trying to leave. "Something came up," she responds, "and she can't make it. She asked me to reschedule it for later this afternoon."
I set the alarm for 6:30, set up the coffee maker, and go to bed.
Alarm goes off. I sleep through it. Secondary alarm goes off at 7, which wakes me up. (I love this alarm clock specifically for that feature!)
Later than I'd hoped, but still plenty of time. I pour myself a cup of copy, settle down to read the morning news. See something in someone's journal I absolutely *must* reply to, and before I realize it, it's 7:30. Shit. Run through the shower, get dressed, out the door at 7:45. No time to walk down to the cable cars, gotta take the bus. No bus. BART leaves at 8:14, and it takes the bus 24 minutes to get there.
I wait.
And wait some more. Where the hell is it? Normally they run every five minutes in the morning.
Contemplate taking a taxi, step out to wave one down. It stops, and the people in front of me get it instead.
Then the bus arrives. It is now 7:55. If some of the stops are empty, I might make it to the BART by 8:14. But just barely.
We stop at the first stop. We stop at the second stop. Traffic is bad. The bus is crowded. I don't usually get on it this early, so I miss San Francisco rush hour traffic normally. Now I see that was a good plan.
We stop at the next stop. The driver gets up and lowers the ramp so an old lady in a walker can board. OK, I'm doomed. Oh, well. So I pull out a book and start reading it. No sense worrying now, right?
Then the bus goes again. And goes. I notice that it hasn't seemed to stop for a while. I look out, and notice we're on Bush street, not Sacramento. Crap, am I on the wrong bus? How'd that happen? I thought the #1 was the only one that stopped where I got on.
We're still going the right direction, just three blocks down from where I expected to be going. And we're still not stopping. What the hell?
Finally, we do stop. Three blocks from the BART station. It turns out, I was on the express to downtown. I didn't know there was an express! Why didn't someone tell me there was an express? I get out and check the time. It's 8:12. I might make it after all! I run the two blocks, get into BART and my ticket doesn't work. It goes into the machine, then says "see agent". I run to the agent's booth. No agent around. Crap.
So, I buy another ticket. Get through the gate, head towards the escalator. It's going the wrong way. Normally it goes down. Today, of course, it's going up. Circle around to the stairs, get through the stream of people coming up them, and arrive on the platform to see the train pulling away. I check the time. 8:14.
Crap.
Find a bench, sit down, start to pull out the computer and the headphones. Then hear the speaker "Pittsburg/Bay Point Train now arriving on platform 2". Huh? That's my train! It's two minutes late! Hooray! I'm saved! I'll be at work at 8:52.
Board the train. Get out the computer, plug in the headphones, settle back to watch a DVD. All is well with the world. Train rolls along. Somewhere after the West Oakland station it stops. Another announcement. "Due to mechanical troubles with a train ahead of us, we will be waiting here for 15 minutes." Fifteen minutes late. That'll put me at work at 9:07. Crap again.
Oh, well, nothing for it now. I put the headphones back on, rewind the movie a bit, and start watching Tom Hanks talking about Apollo 11. The train goes. Then stops. Then goes. Then stops. In three years of riding BART, this is the longest delay I've ever had. Figures.
Finally it goes. No idea how long the delay was. Pull into Walnut Creek station, and I check the time. 8:53. Can that be right? That'll put us in Pleasant Hill at 8:59. And it does. I get off the train, it's 8:59. I run to the turnstyle. My ticket says "see agent" when I try to push it through. What? Aaagh!! Oh - wrong ticket. OK, I put the new one through. Get through, run across the street to work. The elevator's there. Ride it to the sixth floor. The doors open at 9:01am. I can't believe it. I'm gonna be only a minute late. That's not late at all, that's within a sigma of clock! Yay!
I get to my cube to drop everything off. Turn, and our department Admin comes over. "Oh, Pat, Sue was looking for you." "Yeah, we got a meeting now," I say hurriedly, trying to leave. "Something came up," she responds, "and she can't make it. She asked me to reschedule it for later this afternoon."
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-26 10:26 am (UTC)No problem