I have a “thing” that I do when I am bored and waiting for the bus at the bus stop. I’m usually browsing my phone, texting someone, but there is a 60% chance that I’m taking photos of my feet or face on Snapchat (depending on which way the camera is facing). Whatever I take a photo of – it’s a 60% chance that it’s my face with a nonplussed expression – I tend to caption it with “bus stop adventures”.

I suppose it’s a reference to how boring waiting at the bus stop can be.

This morning, I slept in, and I found myself getting out of the house at about 8:47am. I normally take the bus to to a train station, let’s call it A. It takes about fifteen to twenty minutes, and the bus comes every half hour. Sometimes every hour. Let’s call this bus stop A, too.

I knew I missed the 8:47am bus at A because I left home by the time it should have arrived.

So I walked to a different bus stop, deciding to catch a different bus that would take me to a train station, let’s say, B. It’s also called B because it is usually the “plan B”, and not my usual train station. Let’s call the bus stop B as well.

I’m expecting the bus to arrive at 8:55am at B. No problems, right?

Well, imagine my surprise when I cross the road and walk into the street where bus stop B is… and I see the 8:47am bus just travel right behind me. Eight minutes late, and I could have caught it, had I not turned into that street.

I’m a little miffed. I’m standing at bus stop B. The bus should be here any minute now. As I was walking here from far up the road, I didn’t catch a glimpse of the bus, so I’m sure I haven’t missed it. Unless it was really early. But I’ve been waiting for about ten minutes and I think I’m probably unlucky this time.

I don’t want to wait another hour for a bus here, so I make the decision to walk back to bus stop A. It will take only about five minutes, and I’ll be there in time for the bus. It’s due at 9:08am. Either way, I anticipate that I’ll be at work at around the same time anyway.

As soon as I arrive at bus stop A, I see bus B driving towards bus stop B – the bus stop I just came from.

Oh, the irony.

I have included a crude diagram of my neighbourhood, marking my house, and bus stops A and B, as well as their routes. I should mention that this little diagram is totally not to scale, and no, it does not have my neighbour Tristan’s house on it. I actually deliberately left out the roads that were not relevant to this story, so there are missing roads. You’re welcome.

The diagram was drawn with the Skitch app for iPhone. It’s free and will let you draw artistic, minimalist diagrams of your neighbourhood. Lots of brush colours available.