I’ve been talking quite a bit about my success biking lately to the point that it’s allowed me to pretty much discontinue taking the bus for everything but the most special occasions.
The problem being I’m coming to discover is that once one of these special occasions comes up you find yourself unprepared for any of the slightest deviations from the plan. Yesterday I had one of those special occasions.
It was Cartoonist’s Northwest’s annual “Mad Hatter” Party at Renton its a fun evening with food, friends and singing by the fire making S’mores. Since it’s over 20 miles away it remains one of the places I choose to take the bus too. I made all of the appropriate plans which involved going back and forth between Google Maps and The King County Trip Planner. They both have a lot going for them. I like Google because it includes things like walking to the bus stop as part of the plan but it’s still in the beta stage and some of it’s choices can come off as a little wonky so I still use King County’s as a fall back.
One of the downsides of using any of the trip planners is that there really no choice between early or late. I’ve found that while it’s tempting to lean towards early to be punctual there is such thing as being too early and for a party it can be a real social faux pas. (and when it’s happening in the suburbs there is no way to while away any excess time.) The planners don’t make this easy when they only give you the option of every hour. The invitation had said “fivish” which I choose to interprit as 5:30. So I used the plan to get me there at Six PM and I was given a handful of plans that would get me there at 5:30 . In hind sight, I wish I had written down more than one of them.
I left earlier because I didn’t have the right bus fare. On a weekend this involves having to buy a candy bar at Walgreens to break a large bill. While I was waiting at the cash register I saw the 41 go by . It’s usually my second choice to go downtown with (my first is 522 but since Sound Transit doesn’t give transfers I don’t use it for trips that go beyond Downtown) It annoyed me to miss it and I just might have caught it if I had run once I got out of the drug store. But the plan I had written down used the 72 and I wasn’t in a hurry.
However for whatever reasons (I suspect Husky Traffic) the 72 was late… really late and since the plan only allowed for ten minutes for the layover downtown I was not amused. It finally came over ten minutes late and dispute desperate hopes arrived five minutes after the next bus left.
I can only assume my next bus had left right when it was supposed to because I had to wait forty minutes for it come. I spent my time pacing, trying to remember what other bus routes the trip planners had mentioned, and being generally unpleasant to be around. By the time the 101 came I was in one of those annoying snarky don’t mess with me moods where even other people talking amongst themselves annoys me.
It snowballed from there my final bus at the Renton Park and ride was every hour. But at least I was finally at the “can’t do anything about it” phase of my mood. Which meant that while I still wasn’t very pleasant company I could at least read my book.
I finally arrived at the party “sixish” And ultimately I had a fairly good time. Though more than one friend scolded me saying i should have called them for a ride… They were probably right.
