Abandonment issues.

Strangeness just seems to find me. Even the most benign task becomes an adventure for yours truly. And I never really seek out the adventure. It just finds me. Take today for example.

After a case team meeting this morning I hopped on the light rail to pay a trip to my new fave grocery store: Wegman's. Seriously if there's one near you go check it out. Immediately. So much food awesomeness. So there I was, chillin' on the light rail, tryin' to sort through some clinic-related emotions. Suddenly the train shuttered to a stop.

Okay well maybe that's not all that unusual. The light rail's notoriously...unreliable. One time when I was on the light rail a car hit the train. Don't worry no one was hurt. Another time when I was also on the light rail the conductor announced that some light had come on in the train indicating that there was a problem. Instead of stopping he said to hold tight and cross our fingers that the train didn't break. Super. It did sputter a bit but he got it running. Another time some strong winds caused the light rail to shut down for the day. Like I said: notoriously unreliable.

So I thought nothing of the delay at first. We were told to wait 10 minutes. No biggie.

About 5 minutes later we were suddenly told to get off the train and onto a bus. So everyone filed off the train. As I rounded the front of the train to board the bus the bus started driving away. Turns out it was just moving out of traffic but it was enough for my brain to go "Awesome. Now I'm stuck outside the city with no clue how to get home. Plus I really could use some groceries." Like I said the bus was just moving despite my initial fears which must of registered because the conductor of the train felt the need to tell me not to worry the bus wasn't leaving yet. He also felt compelled to call me baby. Luckily for him he was more of a grandfatherly type so I let it slide.

We chug along on the bus for a few minutes and everything seems to be back on track. Suddenly at a stop sign the driver of the bus gets out of the bus and goes to talk to his friend. Actually I don't know who the driver was talking to. They weren't in any sort of uniform so I wasn't able to identify them as an MTA official or anything. Just some random dude on the side of the road. The other side of the road from where our bus was parked. Now once again I'm stranded sans explanation. This time though I'm stranded on a bus. A running bus parked in the middle of the road with no driver. Super.

The driver began doing some giant arm circles with only his left arm. I wasn't sure what he wanted; it appeared that he was aiming these gargantuan circles at us. I stayed put because 90% of the other people on the bus seemed completely unconcerned with what was going on. Apparently being parked on the side of the road in a bus that currently reads "Out of Service" without a driver is a common thing. I was unaware of this.

Eventually the driver came back and resumed driving. I still don't know why he abandoned us like that.

I arrived at my destination, did some shopping and did a lot of puttering slowly around. I made a lap through both Ulta and New York & Company. I had no intention of purchasing anything in either; I was just trying to kill time. Maybe if I took long enough by the time I was finally ready to leave the train would be running again.

WRONG.

It still wasn't running. That meant more busing about. We were bused to a different stop, abandoned at the stop and told to wait for the next train. So we waited. And waited. And waited. And waited. Finally a train showed up. During all that waiting it suddenly dawned on me that I own a smart phone. That meant I could uncover the reason for all this busing! It turns out they were doing repairs on the tracks in between the stop I was currently at and the stop where the Wegman's is. Why they felt the need to suddenly stop the trains to do this repair is still a mystery. Another mystery? Why the repairs are scheduled to take until next Monday.

Oh public transportation, how I love/hate you.