Unfiltered Story #18488

(It’s very late at night and I am trying to get home on a bus I’ve never taken before and I have to make two transfers. I have a map of where I’m supposed to get on/off and make my transfer. Unfortunately, the second bus I’m supposed to get on stops at the same stop going both directions and I get on the westbound bus when I meant to get on the eastbound.)

Me: *checking GPS to see how close I am to my second transfer and realizing that I’m going in the wrong direction* “Um, I think I got on the wrong bus. Do you go to [second transfer]?”

Driver: “Yeah, on my way back. You got on at [first transfer], right?”

Me: “Yes. I saw you were getting ready to leave so I ran for your bus. I didn’t realize you were going the other way. What time to do you get to [second transfer].”

Driver: “About 2am, why?”

Me: “Because the last bus home leaves there at 1:30. Is there a faster bus I can take get there?”

Driver: “Not at this time of night. My return trip is the last eastbound one of the night and you missed the one before me. I’m afraid you’re gonna miss your transfer.”

Me: *sighs* “Well that’s what I get for not paying attention I guess. Thank you.”

(I sit down in one of the empty seats near the front, resigned to either paying for a cab home or waiting 3 hours for the buses to start running again in the morning. About 20 minutes later when the bus is empty except for me and a few sleeping passengers, the driver gets my attention.)

Driver: “You were gonna transfer to [bus #3], right? Where do you get off?”

Me: “Uh, [stop near my house]. I live downtown”

Driver: “This is my last trip, then I go to the garage and I have to drive right past downtown. I can’t drop you off at [stop near my house], but I can drop you off about a mile from there. Better than spending the night at the bus stop.”

(So I stayed on the bus after he got to his last stop and he dropped me off on his way back to the garage. I found out later he’d actually made a small detour to drop me off and he ended up dropping me closer to home than my normal bus stop. I know I thanked you a bunch of times then, but thank you again Driver.)