I hadn’t had a bad CTA experience in several months so I
guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when Friday I had a terrible one. I left my apartment the same time as
usual, maybe even a little earlier.
I make my way to the bus stop for the #136 and am waiting and
waiting….and waiting. Finally, one
comes but it drives right by. So I
wait some more and some more, and finally, another one comes. And it ALSO DRIVES RIGHT BY. At this point, I know for a fact that I
will be late. My stomach is
in knots and I am extremely anxious.
If there is one thing that really really gets to me, it’s being late for
work or class. So, I’m standing
there realizing I have to do SOMETHING.
The red line will take too long.
So will any bus, but I just hop on one—I choose the 144 instead of the
146, the one good choice I made this day since it goes express sooner. Before I get on, I drop my water bottle
on the ground. (This becomes
important in a second). So I sit
down on the 144 and realize my seat is getting all wet. My water bottle was leaking. So I move seats, becoming more and more
anxious realizing this is not my day at all. This whole time I’m thinking I have two choices. I can get off at Michigan and try to
hail a cab and maybe still make it, or I can stay on the bus and just jog the
remainder to school.
I choose wrong.
I get off and realize pretty quick every stinking cab is full. I hop back on a 140something and take
it to Michigan and South Water. I
get off and am still 16 minutes away.
It is 5 til 9 at this point.
So I hope on a 140something or other and take it to State and Lake. I am now around 12 minutes away. I jog half of the distance to school
and make it 12 minutes late. One
more thing about this choose your own adventure (every thing I chose was wrong)
day. I had put my water bottle
with the ice remaining in my lunch bag not realizing the reason it had been leaking
was because it had cracked (I thought nalgenes couldn’t crack). So my sandwich was soaked and I had to
throw it out. I was in a funk
through lunch.
Fast forward to the next day—Friday night. I am on the way to Union Station. I leave super early and take the red
line not wanting to deal with the bus.
The red line of course has a delay of 5-10 minutes on the way (This
rarely happens—delays are usually 1-2 minutes). So I get off at Jackson finally and try to find the bus to
Union Station. Now I have a pretty
good sense of direction in Chicago by day but when it’s night time it pretty
much all goes out the window. Add
night to anxiety at being late and you have me totally and completely clueless. So I wonder around in the rain looking
for the bus and finally decide to walk to Union Station. Somehow I find it and
I arrive bedraggled and pretty stinkin’ wet. Of course my luggage is soaked too.
TWO horrible transit/getting lost etc experiences in two
days. It goes to show you have to
take the bad along with the good in life.
This seriously has tested my positivity. It’s easy to be positive when things go great in life. The real challenge comes when you’re
faced with stress. Let’s hope
things look up soon.
