Another dumb story about transportation
May. 26th, 2015 05:25 amSo Saturday I had the problem of getting back to Colin and Aviva's from the bar where Shuo and Nadja and Jim and I all met. I asked Nadja how to get home, and she said, take this bus north to Chicago Ave, then this bus west (or you can just walk west, it's not far) and then you'll be somewhere you can recognize and you can get back from there.
So I get on the bus, right, and at first I'm not really paying attention. Then I see areas that look maybe kind of familiar? And I'm thinking, oh crap Harry, you've missed your stop. But then I think, no, this sort of thing has happened before -- where you get on a bus you don't know, and you keep thinking you missed your stop. It basically never turns out that you actually missed your stop. Your sense of this is not reliable. Just chill out and sit tight until you get to Chicago Ave.
(I saw a blue line stop, and I knew how to get to Colin's from the blue line, and I thought about getting off there and just taking the subway; but instead I stayed on the bus.)
Well, the bus kept going, and going, and going... until finally it got to the end of the line. I had indeed missed my stop. And of course it stops for a while at the end of the line before it turns around, which was annoying as I really had to pee by this point.
But! The thing is? I was totally right that my sense of this is completely unreliable. Because while I did miss my stop, it wasn't until pretty late; it wasn't that far back from the end of the line. So early on when I was thinking "I missed my stop earlier when I wasn't paying attention", I was still wrong. (I don't know how I did eventually miss my stop; I thought I was paying attention. Apparently not well enough.)
So I had the right strategy, even though I did somehow ultimately miss my stop.
-Harry
So I get on the bus, right, and at first I'm not really paying attention. Then I see areas that look maybe kind of familiar? And I'm thinking, oh crap Harry, you've missed your stop. But then I think, no, this sort of thing has happened before -- where you get on a bus you don't know, and you keep thinking you missed your stop. It basically never turns out that you actually missed your stop. Your sense of this is not reliable. Just chill out and sit tight until you get to Chicago Ave.
(I saw a blue line stop, and I knew how to get to Colin's from the blue line, and I thought about getting off there and just taking the subway; but instead I stayed on the bus.)
Well, the bus kept going, and going, and going... until finally it got to the end of the line. I had indeed missed my stop. And of course it stops for a while at the end of the line before it turns around, which was annoying as I really had to pee by this point.
But! The thing is? I was totally right that my sense of this is completely unreliable. Because while I did miss my stop, it wasn't until pretty late; it wasn't that far back from the end of the line. So early on when I was thinking "I missed my stop earlier when I wasn't paying attention", I was still wrong. (I don't know how I did eventually miss my stop; I thought I was paying attention. Apparently not well enough.)
So I had the right strategy, even though I did somehow ultimately miss my stop.
-Harry
