For the consideration of others

Music: David Bowie

Graaaaaaaaaaaargh!

Harggaaaaarghablarggh!

..ookay.. let's give this a shot.

The TTC is really starting to piss me off. Actually, they have pissed me off to varying extents for years. But more recently.
Much more.
Like when a bus driver arrives at the station and you get on the bus.. and then he gets off the bus and goes off with the driver of another bus waiting in the station and they go have a nice old TWENTY MINUTE LONG SMOKE BREAK off to the side of the platform or something and leave all the people in the vehicles to just wait.
Such a thing happend to me. Tonight. About a half hour ago.
I am trying to get home. It's late. I am at Broadview station and just have to catch a bus up Broadvies to my house. There are 3 different buses that all go past my place (the 8, 87 and 100), and another that goes close enough that I could walk it (the 62). Shouldn't be too hard to get home. I wait for a while and then I see the first bus, the 8, drive up to the station.
But doesn't enter it. It parks outside the station and the driver gets out and goes to talk with the drivers of the 2 streetcars thatare idling in the station. And the 3 of them have a grand old time talking about whatever - whatever doesn't seen to include driving a fucking bus, though.
Well, after a while of this the 62 shows up. Since this bus actually came into the station, I went over and got into it. And it sat there.
And sat there.
And sat there.
And sat there until the driver of the 8 got back into his bus and drove into the station and paused there for about a minute. Long enough for a few people to board, but not nearly long enough for me to get off the 62 and walk the length of platform to get onto the 8. So it drives off and I sit there in the 62 a while more. But it has gotten cold, and my foot is sore, so I decide that I really shouldn't walk the distance that taking the 62 would require. So I get off and the 62 immediately drives off.
So now 2 of the 4 buses are gone, along with quite a lot of time. Eventually the 100 shows up and drives into the station and me and all the others waiting for buses board it as the driver GETS OFF. And then he goes over and greets his friend the streetcar driver idling across the platform with an exhuberant "Hey!" and a complicated handshake. The two of them go to his streetcar to grab his bag and then wander off to the edge of the station to have a smoke (illegal by the way - they are still on TTC property). So we wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and the 87 shows up and parks.
Now, I could get up and switch over to the 87 but it just arrived and the 100 has been in the station for ages, so logic dictates that the 100 will leave first, right?
Right?
Yeah... no. The 87 leaves almost immediately and I am left sitting on the last of the 4 buses with all of the other pissed off tired travellers. The driver eventually gets back after a 15-20 minute smoke break and both him and the streetcar driver get in their respective vehicles and drive out of the station. They way that Broadview is built means that is a bus and a streetcar leave at the same time they pass each other as they both circle out of the station's roundabout - which they did. And then felt the need to both stop as they passed to say hi again cause it had been a whole minute since they saw each other last.
Did I mention that when buses and streetcars pass each other on the way out they are on Broadview? Well they are. So these guys stopped to block both the north and south lanes of Broadview along with the unlucky motorists stuck behind them.
The two drivers managed to tear away from each other after a tearful but thankfully brief goodbye and finally I am on my way north up the road to home and my bed.

Did I mention that the bus driver rocketed straight through a red light at Mortimer - the largest intersection on my trip home?

Fucking asshole clowns.