14 Mission during the Thursday night commute

The 14 Mission lagged on that final block before my stop. The dreaded 1st Street & Mission intersection was littered with SUV's trying to sneak their way across although the light had already turned red and so we were stuck waiting through the light and the SUV contigent was stuck in the intersection. I could see fellow transbay bus riders thumbing their AC Transit bus tickets, checking their watches, becoming antsy as the bus stuck to a sloooow crawl.

My watch read 6:42 pm. I would still be able to catch the 6:45 bus back home if only...if only the damned traffic moved and I willed it to move as I leaned forward and stared through the driver's window, hopeful and impatient. If I missed this bus home I would have to wait half an hour in the bus terminal for the 7:15 all the while inhaling fumes as roaring MUNI, AC Transit, Greyhound and Tourist bus engines crowded my brainwaves. No, I was determined that I was going to catch the 6:45 bus.

Green light. It was 6:43 and the 14 was still stuck on Mission but then in an act of the gods of traffic, we moved gloriously across the intersection, red light be damned! 6:45 pm and I hoppped off the 14 and started my sprint into the Transbay terminal. I skipped infront of taxis dropping off people at the entrance to the terminal, booked it past the newspaper vendor, around suitcased tourists looking haggard and lost, up the left lane of the escalator mechanically saying excuse me to the people standing on the right side of the automatic steps, through the corridor lined with bus route maps and up to the loading area where my bus was creeping out of it's stop. It was already twenty feet from the designated loading area but I waved my arms crazily and ran to the door of the moving bus and the busdriver slowed, stopped, and welcomed me aboard, accomplished and very very very breathless.