philosophy at age eight


“If you cannot control your peanut butter, you cannot expect to control your life.”
~ Judah-ism

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

truism: karma's a b*tch

7 o'clock last night, waiting wet and bedraggled at the downtown Seattle bus stop for my ride home, I had the dubious honor of listening to a man, also taking shelter from the rain, reaming out a Metro dispatcher on his cell phone.  According to his tirade, he'd been waiting for 50 minutes for bus #355, and it hadn't come by, no-it-hadn't-he'd-been-standing-here-the-whole-time-don't-tell-him-it-came-by, and Metro really needed to get their act together, because it wasn't acceptable! 

Everyone around him found some fascinating point in the distance to stare at, and like me, probably wondered if Seattle-ites were the most uptight people in the nation, or just the state? Still on the phone, still ranting to the poor Metro employee, the man stalks off and crosses the street. 

Just as he reached the other side of the street, the #355 rumbled up.

My faith in Seattle-ites was restored.  Two women standing close to me started laughing.  So did I.  We tried to crane our necks--ever so delicately--to see if he'd noticed... nope, he was still clutching his phone, turned away.  Too far away to summon without a whole lot of hullabaloo.  And being Seattle-ites, we oh-so-detest hullabaloos of any sort. 

"I guess that goes to show that karma really is a bitch," remarked one of the ladies as we watched #355 rumble off along its route.

The man was marching stiffly down the opposite side of the street, still on his cell. We craned again to see if he noticed his missed ride as it passed him... couldn't really tell, but we shared a glance of unholy glee as we fought our snickers.

Karma, indeed.  Don't be an ass.

Men are not punished for their sins, but by them.  
~Elbert Hubbard

2 comments:

Jeff Welch said...

Want to hear the real kicker? The driver of that #355 bus will in a few days have to have a meeting with a supervisor to face that customer's complaint - even though the driver had nothing to do with the bus being late. The caller doubtless will claim that the bus was *early*, and that's what the driver will be accused of.

See my blog post under "Ask a Bus Driver" - Why is my bus late?

miakodo said...

That's extremely unfortunate. I wonder if that's better or worse than dealing with the ass when he steps into the bus and starts laying into the driver, like I've seen them do. Jerks are really not popular, even at the stops, but lynching would unfortunately be classified under a "hullabaloo+" category. And so messy, too.

I don't see how it's even possible to keep on a schedule. All the route needs is a differently-abled passenger or two, and the bus is a good ten minutes late. It's no skin off the back of any reasonable person -- even when its wet and freezing like last night. I haven't had a working car in over a year, and bus-drivers are my saviors.

Speaking of which, I am running for the next one now! *be on time, be on time!* ;)