Monday, May 09, 2005

The Waiting People

You’re standing on the subway platform, a streetcar stop, under the weather cover waiting for a bus. Surrounded by you are people who constantly look in the direction that the bus/streetcar/subway is destined to come from.

Am I the only person that this annoys the shit out of??

Unless you’re contemplating walking or grabbing a cab, you starring in the direction of the oncoming transport is not going to make it come any faster! Just sit back and hold onto your hat.

I guess the reason that this annoys me so much is that I’m one of those people. I try not to be. I catch myself and then turn away, realizing that I’m wasting my energy. Of course it’s not just transportation that I’m constantly looking down the line for. I’m a ‘planner’ type, I guess you could say. If I have things to do in a day I figure out the schedule of how much time it’ll take me to get ready and what to do. Because of this when people are late, or early (which can be just as rude as being late) it throws me off my schedule and I become annoyed.

The truth is I wish I could just stand back and wait for the bus to come on it’s own accord. Sometimes I wonder what it’d be like to just float, not really give a shit… of course most of the time, I don’t.

2 comments:

  1. i look down the line too. not because i think/hope it'll make the subway come faster, but because that way i can avoid looking at the people standing around with me.

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  2. I think you posted this 3 years ago, that or my eyes are failing me already. So this comment will be slightly* out of date. Anyway, I just wanted to say that if the bus was on time I wouldn't have to look for it, and in turn I wouldn't have to be worried about whether I needed to call work to tell them whether I would be there to fulfill my duties. Being here in Canberra I can say, the bus is ALWAYS on time. And you don't look because you know it is coming; in fact, you could set your watch by it. That being said, the transport system here is much less extensive than Toronto, and serves far fewer people.
    I think looking for the bus means that we can determine whether we have more or less time to float about in our real lives. Lives that are (hopefully)devoid of frequent public transportation.

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