(Waiting for the) Friday Night Commute

The bus is late, I mean r e a l l y late. The line shifts and sighs together waiting to return home for that long awaited Friday night dinner/ television watching/ book reading/ bathing/ lovemaking/ painting/ music creating. A vocally upset woman races across the terminal tracking down official looking employees who routinely shake their head while pointing to their mysterious clipboards. She reports back to the line, no one knows when the bus will come. Informed of our collective annoyance, an AC Transit Representative approaches and repeats his wholly insincere rehearsed lines to the sagging bodies in the line, now the only line in the entire terminal. "We cannot find the bus or the busdriver. We will let you know when we contact the bus or find a backup driver to drive the line, whichever comes first."

Fifty minutes later and the bus still is victim of assumed abduction so when the next scheduled bus arrives (quite on time almost an hour later) we don't pay the $2.50 fare. Mr. AC Representative informs us he is doing us a favor and that we should "keep quiet" about the free fare because they simply can't let everyone ask for a free fare all the time. However this is the second free fare in two days afforded by events of bad public transporatation so I am hardly impressed by saving the money. I note the rolling eyes on folks who've been waiting as long as I have and assume that they aren't quite impressed either.