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Of the 6 trips I’ve taken this week by public transit, 5 of them have been smooth and uneventful. Which makes them boring, so I’ll tell you about the crappy trip home I had last night. 

I glanced at my computer clock at 5:52. Mistake #1. My computer clock has been known to lose 4 minutes in a day, so I don’t know why I thought this clock was accurate. But I decided it meant I still had time to catch the 6:10-ish bus from the corner my office is on. 

I hustled downstairs and went to the bus stop. I let the bus on the other route through that stop go by, because I was sure mine was coming.

Yeah, it didn’t. 

But no problem! There are two other buses going through Brookland that stop near my office, and according to Nextbus, one of them was just 10 minutes away! I just needed to walk 5.5 blocks. Looooong blocks (since I work on the Mall). In the pinchy, less cushioned, “cute” shoes.

It took me 15 minutes.

I stood there for a bit, hoping the bus was a few minutes late. No joy. 

“Screw this,” I thought. “Farragut West is not that far away, and there’s a bus that stops there that will drop me off in front of my house. I’ll just walk it.”

“Not that far away” turns out to be about a mile, which I hadn’t really considered. Which isn’t so far, but remember, they were the *cute* shoes. They’re just the slightest little wedges, but there’s not a lot of give in them, no padding, and are just not made for walking. So my feet and shins were cramping from walking while tilted at that odd angle, and the stiff leather was rubbing blisters into my heels.

But finally, I arrived at Farragut West. Nextbus told me my bus was but a minute away!

Nextbus is a dirty liar. I sat there for 15 minutes- the bus that was 1 minute away disappeared from Nextbus, and the next one was at least 35 minutes out. I saw 4 Mount Pleasant buses pass in the meantime.

Finally I said, “This is ridiculous! I’m across the street from a Metro station!” So I made my way, still limping, into the station. Hopped on an Orange Line train. Transferred and squeezed onto a Red line train. 

One of the side-facing seats was empty, despite all the people crowded onto the train. My feet were screaming, so I started to sit down, when a man nearby literally stuck his arm out behind me to stop me. I bit down to avoid yelling at him when he advised me not to sit down at that seat, because there was “something” on the poster ad above it. 

The “something” was a stinkbug. A STINKBUG. A stinkbug that was high enough up that it wouldn’t have been directly behind me. And I was wearing a hat. I sat anyway, and realized that I, the girl who is terrified of anything with more legs than my cat, was the only person willing to sit with the stinkbug. Wussies.

Another guy offered to squish it. “No, don’t do that. When you squish them, they smell bad.” “They what?” “They stink when you crush them. That’s why they’re called stinkbugs.” WTF people? Has the Bedbug Ragnarok already erased the Stinkbug Armageddon from your overhyped media memories?

Finally, the train pulled in at Brookland. I saw that the bus that goes past my house was still 10 minutes out, about the same amount of time it takes me to walk home. I decided to tough it out and walk. 

But the walk is downhill. And my feet were already tilted at a weird angle from the cute little wedges. And blistered. It took me 20 minutes to walk home 7 blocks, and the bus I didn’t want to wait for passed me on the way.

Half a block from the house, I gave up, took off my shoes, and limped the rest of the way home barefoot.

Don’t want to complain about it, though. I mean, I’ve got a couple of blisters and my legs are sore. It’s not like my ass is broken or anything.

But, you know, aside from that, and from the tweeps who got irrationally invested in trying to convince me to sell the car I’ve already decided I’d rather donate, it’s gone pretty well.

Tomorrow I have to drive though. Dance class.