The Tale of the Christmas Meanie*

~ Ellie

We were stunned.

Bus - snow storm
Photo (cc) by Zvi Leve

There we were, after seeing The Irishman, getting on the 17 bus going south: my sweetie John; his son Jeff, visiting from North Bay; and I, your intrepid storyteller.

We were headed toward a rendez-vous with the 103 bus going west, all the way to the apartment John and I share in Côte St. Luc. The bus schedule we checked – and rechecked – on our phones told us the connection would be a close call.

As our 17 bus reached Monkland Avenue, we saw the 103 up ahead, waiting at a red traffic light to make its turn. Oh no! We still had to get to the actual 103 stop two blocks away, on Monkland and Marcil!

“We’ll never make it,” said I.

“Let’s try,” urged the more optimistic John.

“C’mon,” shouted the energetic 19-year-old Jeff, already starting to trot.

It was 11:31 p.m. The next 103 bus wasn’t due until 12:00. If we missed this one, we’d have to wait half an hour in the freezing cold. It was -14° Celsius, with the windchill (6.8° F).

Jeff broke into a run ahead of us, just as the 103’s light turned green and it began its turn around the corner onto Monkland.

Now the bus, Jeff, John and I were all in a race along Monkland towards the stop on Marcil.

John and Jeff turned and started to wave frantically at the driver, hoping against hope that he’d have pity on us before the official bus stop.

But no. Jeff raced to the corner of Marcil, just as the bus had to stop to let someone off. Jeff, now almost a block ahead of us (we were at a full run, mind you), stepped up onto the bus, obviously pleading with the driver to wait, as we would be there in just a second.

But no! From barely a bus-length away, we stared uncomprehendingly at Jeff, who stepped hurriedly backward down from the step as the driver closed the doors (practically on him) and sped away! Without us!

We stared at poor dejected Jeff, who told us, “He said, ‘I’m not letting you hold my bus hostage.'”

EXCUSE ME?????? One more second and we would’ve been there! The driver had seen us, THREE PEOPLE RUNNING for him on a deserted street!

Left us there, stranded in the cold for half an hour. On Christmas night!!!!!! Someone missed the message of Christmas, wouldn’t you say?!

I cannot begin to tell you the swear words that issued from my lips that frosty night.

*I can’t say the real name I called him. It started with B and ended with D. But this is a family blog, so… 😬

 

 

16 thoughts on “The Tale of the Christmas Meanie*”

  4. Send a report to the STM with the dates and times. They honestly do look into things like this. I know from past experiences. I always report occurrences like this with drivers just plain being “grinchy” but I also tell the STM when drivers have waited through a change of lights so that I could make the bus. The only way to improve service and/or make them aware of certain drivers’ behavours is to let them know.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  5. Wow, that’s just rude and inconsiderate regardless of whether or not it’s the holidays. It would have cost him (and his passengers) nothing except a few seconds of their time, and he couldn’t spare them? I think he may not be suited for the job he’s doing.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks! Agree with all!!! I sent off a complaint – basically an adapted version of this post – using the bus company’s online form. I’ll post an update when I have news!!

      Like

      Reply

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out /  Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s