Mass Irritation

As many of you know, I do not drive. My primary transportation methods are my feet, and the public transit system. In Kitchener, that means the bus.
The bus system is run by the Grand River Transit group. They service most of the local cities, from Guelph to Kitchener and Waterloo to St. Jacobs. They employ what I assume to be quite a large number of people, and own and maintain probably upwards of a couple of hundred buses.
With fares at $2.25, with transfers that last an hour and a half, this means that most people taking public transit will probably spend anywhere from $4.50 to $9.00 per day, if they're careless. The smart ones will buy bus tickets which might save them about 15 to 20% of those costs.
That's a lot of money made by the GRT. Sure, they have their expenditures, but I find it very difficult to believe that they're running at a deficit, which means they should have plenty of money to spend on improving the existing bus system AND expanding it. You need to spend money to make money, after all.
And yet the buses are consistently late. Not seldom or sometimes or every once in a while late, but consistently, all the time, every single damned day late. Usually they're late by no more than a couple of minutes, but I have in some instances -more often than I would like to recall- waited so long for a bus that when it's finally come, it may as well be the next bus coming a few minutes early, and probably is.
Those instances are most likely statistical anomalies, but more and more I wonder if this is the case. I've had several experiences on the bus over the last few years that point to laziness and ineptitude being the culprits behind buses being late for their scheduled arrival and departure times.
Once a few years back I was on my way to work at the mall, already almost late, when the bus driver decided to hop off the bus and talk to a friend of his who was working as a crossing guard. He took his little break at the inconvenience of everyone on the bus, and took about five minutes doing so. Now, five minutes may not seem like a lot, especially since this particular instance happened in summertime, but in cold weather it can mean the difference between getting frostbite and dying from hypothermia.
On another occasion a bus driver stopped the bus in front of Tim Hortons, exited, and ran inside for a coffee. I like my coffee. I also purchase it on my scheduled breaks. I don't just drop my customer whenever I feel a hankering for some caffeine. That's what this bus driver did. He left his paying customers, to most of whom time is undoubtedly a factor in their transportation arrangements, to get himself a coffee.
Just today I was taking the bus to work and another incident occurred. Understand that I usually try to be at work an hour before my scheduled shift, because I like to take the time to relax and catch up on emails and work on offline work before I start my shift, so I wasn't exactly going to be late if the bus happened to run into a delay, which is another reason I go to work so early. That doesn't mean what happened didn't irritate me.
We all know teenagers when grouped together seem to reach a critical mass of idiocy and start acting out to prove that they actually matter, which they don't, but it's a common misconception. The bus was full of them, having just gotten off school. I don't mind teenagers on the bus, because I simply ignore them, and in turn, they ignore me. This is an agreeable situation.
Apparently the bus driver did not have such tolerance.
One of these teenagers, as they tend to do, rang the bell with no intention of getting off. Fine. Jordan has a similar story to tell about a similar situation, but what happened was basically the same thing. The bus driver stopped the bus, and would not start it again until someone got off the bus. We waited for five minutes before these particular teenagers decided to get off.
While I don't applaud the behavior of the teenagers, I felt the bus driver should understand my feelings about the situation, so I put away my book and walked up to him. I said "I just wanted to mention to you that the tactic you just used was extremely disrespectful to those of us who are actually trying to get to work. Thank you." The way I write it seems calm but I was on the verge of lividity. Many passengers heard me and gave me grins of solidarity.
The bus driver's reply: "Well, if they'd just said "sorry, wrong stop" or something we would have gotten going."
At this point I was back in my seat but I wanted to reply. Pardon me? Since when did this have anything to do with a misunderstanding about whether they wanted to get off, or if they chose the wrong stop? They were obviously toying with you, you knew it, and you decided to teach them a lesson.
I may be crazy off the wall here but as a bus driver, is it this man's responsibility to be the parent to these children? Is he their teacher? Is he even a distant relative to whom they owe some explanation of their behavior or whose opinion should matter to them? No. They are not going to pay attention to any lesson that a bus driver attempts to teach them because to them, he is just that: The man who drives the freaking bus. So do your job, and drive the freaking bus. Inconveniencing all of your other paying customers for the sake of teaching a lesson to a few reprehensible youths is both idiotic and a waste of everyone's time.
So next time the bus is insanely late I am going to question the bus driver as to why. These are but a few examples of the irresponsibility of the employees of the GRT. I have others, but these ones truly come to mind. It's no longer just chance, or accident. I have a feeling now that every time the bus is late, it's either because some bus driver is trying to have some sort of pathetic power trip, or because he's abandoning his job in favour of some personal agenda.
He or she should be reprimanded for either.

My Purview to Review

D and I went to see "The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge" yesterday. Knowing that Linds and James and my parents have yet to see it, I'll try to give away as little as I can of the plot.
As much fun as I might poke at Theatre and Company, I think that they put on a spectacular show, and this play was no exception. Whomever is in charge of set design there does an absolutely marvellous job.
The play begins before the audience has even seated. The theatre is transformed into an eighteenth century courthouse, so that upon entering you feel as though you are in fact entering said courthouse, and the seat you take is your place in the gallery where you will bear witness to the proceedings. A faux parquet wooden floor and a wooden judge's podium and witness stand have been laid out before the audience, with two gas lantern chandeliers hanging from ropes close to the ground. It became immediately apparent that at the beginning of the play someone would come to light these lamps and raise them up to brighten the courthouse, which I thought lent a sense of authenticity to the play.
I'll say right now that I thoroughly enjoyed the play, and I think it would be difficult not to. I would call it a "comedic homage" to Charles Dickens' classic, not a satire since it had not the tongue in cheek criticism for Charles Dickens' story that a true satire would require. Rather, the play seemed to be intended as a reminder to those of us who have grown up with Scrooge and the ghosts of Christmas and have become used to his story what in fact that story was trying to teach us. Namely, the play reminds us that Charles Dickens meant for all men and women to show good cheer and charity to their fellows all the year around, and not to restrict ourselves to being good to each other merely one day out of three hundred and sixty five.
At times the play was sad, but never became maudlin. At times it was funny, but never farcical. At times it was downright scary, though the joy with which it was written soon banished fear and turned it into delight. One can easily detect Mark Brown's own feelings towards Christmas, or more pointedly the Christmas Spirit in the passionate speeches given by the witnesses at the trial, in the criticisms levied by Scrooge towards those same witnesses, and in the warm hearted advocacy of the defense attourney working on behalf of the Ghosts of Christmas.
What really stood out was Mark Brown's command of language. I found myself enthralled by the speeches and engaged fully in the trial, truly feeling that I was part of it and that I should give every word my full concentration. I paid careful attention to every turn of phrase, every joke, and never felt a moment of my attention wasted or squandered. The writing was so good I think I would have enjoyed it as much had it been performed as a radio play, with only my mind upon which the images evoked by the actors' stirring words could dance and play.
I had but one criticism, and a small one at that. On several occasions Mark Brown takes quotations directly from the popularized film versions of Charles Dickens' "A Chrismas Carol". They are used to great effect and well, and seem intended once more to make clear that this is an homage, but at times I felt the play suffered from the use of these quotations. I think that these quotations were a crutch upon which the playwright leaned, though like Tiny Tim after Scrooge's interventions the crutch was unnecessary. The reason for their use was clear, but I think "A Christmas Carol" is popular enough and well known enough that most men, women, and children know it nearly by heart already, and it would have been better to focus on the story at hand than to worry about drawing our minds back time and time again to the original tale with anything other than allusion.
I highly recommend seeing this play, be it at Theatre and Company or some other playhouse. I would see it again myself, but I think I've finally given away all the tickets I had available. And I would like to congratulate Mark Brown on recreating a fantastic world in which I happily spent two hours of my life, and which left me and D warm for the rest of the night.
On a side note I would like to suggest perhaps writing this as a radio play, as I mentioned above, because I think it would translate quite well, and perhaps broaden the audience to whom it could be delivered. Just a thought.
Merry Christmas.

Secret Shame

It's time for me to come clean about something. I've alluded to it in the past, and maybe it's been missed, but I think it's important to have a frank discussion about the topic.
I like figure skating.
I don't mean I personally enjoy flouncing around on the rink like a hyperactive background dancer on wheels. What I mean to say is that when I see figure skating, I get a giddy sense of joy and pleasure tingling all through my body, and find myself unwilling to tear my gaze away. I love watching it on TV, and while I've never had the opportunity, would love to see it in person as well.
To give people an idea about the severity of this problem, I have the same sort of reaction to finding figure skating on TV that most people reserve for a friend's new baby or getting a replica Darth Vader lightsaber signed by James Earl Jones for Christmas (which would rock).
For the longest time I refused to admit it. I would only ever watch figure skating in the depths of night, when all the house was asleep and it was just me and Christi Yamaguchi, or Michelle Kwan, or their compatriots, when I could revel in their skill, in their triumphs and tragedies in private.
I realized I had a problem when D caught me watching figure skating when she came home from work one day a little bit early, and I wasn't able to change the channel in time.
I know that figure skating doesn't really hurt anyone, except for perhaps when the skaters wipe out, but hiding my love of it is unhealthy for me, pyschologically. I shouldn't keep it bottled up inside, or one day I'll find myself in sequins and not really know why.
So I'm coming out. I like figure skating. I think Triple Salchows are awe inspiring.
I even like the music.
So ridicule me if you like, but I'm proud of my love of figure skating and I have no reason to be ashamed.
I am a skating afficionado. Hear me roar!

Theatrical Overcompensation

I've come to the conclusion that at a certain point, a company correcting a mistake by giving away free services or products loses its impact.
A couple of years ago D had an evil plan. A couple of years ago? What am I saying? She has an evil plan every day. Well, this particular evil plan was to have the two of us experience some culture.
I'm a cultured guy. I love culture. I enjoy art galleries, museums, concerts, musicals. I enjoy ballet. And, my most secret of shames... I enjoy figure skating. So I asked D to tell me more. She mentions that she's been looking at the downtown theatre, at the play series they're running and that it looks really good. She decides to buy us a subscription to their season as a Christmas present.
The plays we see are good. Most of them very good. The actors are all believable, the plays themselves well written and impactful. It's a small theatre but it puts on a great show.
Fast forward to this year.
We decide to buy another subscription for this year's season, more based on how we enjoyed the previous year than because of the description of the new plays they'll be performing. When reading about the new season, we find out they're trying a new tactic. Split the season into two sub seasons, geared to different themes. Sounds great! What? We also get these electronic pass keys that will act as our tickets into the theatre? Fancy! That makes the gadget loving nerd inside me happy.
D orders the subscription.
And we wait.
And wait.
I sit hungrily anticipating my electronic access card, like a starved vulture waiting for a man lost in the desert to die.
We call the theatre, finally. No electronic pass keys. Something went wrong when they were being ordered, so we're going to be sent printed tickets. Oh, and because there's been such a delay, here's some free tickets to the Christmas show.
Great! D's sister is coming home from Britain at Christmas, her and her husband might like to come to the show! We're very happy about this compensation, even though it was unnecessary.
We see a couple of shows, have to reschedule one or two of them because the matinees are on days where one or the other of us is working, but we're enjoying the season. All of a sudden D gets an email from the theatre.
In essence, it says that they feel their performances so far have not been meeting their own requirements in terms of quality. So here's two free tickets to the Christmas show.
O-kay?
We see another couple of shows, and are rapidly approaching November when we both get a call on our respective phones. D actually answers hers, and finds out that due to low subscription and attendance rates, etc, we have to reschedule a play we were planning on seeing for a different day. We're fine with this, so we reschedule.
Oh, and by the way, due to the inconvenience this has caused, here's two free tickets to our Christmas show.
WE DON'T NEED ANY MORE FREAKING TICKETS! HOW MANY PEOPLE CAN WE BRING TO THIS DAMNED PLAY! I don't think I HAVE six friends who would want to go to see The Trial of Ebeneazer Scrooge. What am I supposed to do, scalp the things? (I'd like to put an edit in here since the writer of the play has apparently been reading my blog. I didn't intend for the above to imply my friends wouldn't LIKE the play. I just don't think I can round up enough friends with an interest in theatre and the spare time available to SEE the play.)
Please, god, stop with the tickets. You know what would be adequate compensation for a mistake? Promise NEVER TO OFFER ME ANOTHER FREE TICKET. Now that would make me a happy customer.

Felonious Attitude

Something happened on Saturday on my trip with D to Toronto for her company Christmas party that really made me think about myself and my responses to certain situations, and made me wonder whether other people have the same sort of reaction.
I woke up around my regular time on Saturday (10 AM) to D prodding me awake, but doing so with offers of coffee, so I forgave her. I also knew that I had to be up so we could travel to Toronto, and that she'd been awake since early morning at some cookie faire doing work. I didn't really have a leg to stand on if I had chosen to whine about waking up, so I woke with as much grace and forebearance as I could manage (I rolled out of bed and whined at D for about a minute, incomprehensibly).
Luckily, she knows this is just a defense mechanism and continued to prod me until my brain actually engaged.
After coffee I became as lucid as I ever am, and realized that in my sleepy stupor I had already dressed myself. I checked for unwanted undergarments attached to my clothing, found none, and D and I were off to Milton.
I'd like to take a moment to make a comment about Milton. It's flat. It's VERY flat. And because it's flat, it's windy. It also has the world's highest concentration of townhouses. These features combine to make it the most inhospitable city I have ever visited. It's like finding one's self on the surface of the moon, without the moon's aesthetic appeal.
We had to visit Milton in order to take the GO bus into Toronto. It is a good, safe place to park until early in the morning, and most importantly a free place to park.
We got to Milton later than intended, however. We were about 10 minutes late for the bus we had wanted to take, and had to wait about 3 quarters of an hour for the next bus. When we arrived at the GO station we parked the car and headed over to the terminal, hoping to buy our tickets. As we approached, we spied three men standing at the doors to the terminal. Now, I'm suspicious by nature, so when we got close enough to be hailed and the first thing out of one of the men's mouths was, "Hey, you guys got a smoke I can buy?" I was instantly on guard.
The three men were in fact two boys, and one man. I'd say the boys were probably 15 and 17, and the man was mid 30's. The man was in the process of taking off his belt and throwing it in the garbage as we approached, which was odd to say the least. All three were also clutching identical clear plastic bags, each with a slip of legal sized paper inside and containing what I assumed at the time to be shopping.
We quickly departed when we found that the terminal was closed (I can understand why no one would want to work on a Saturday in Milton, so I wasn't too miffed.) and went to find coffee.
After returning with coffee for me and apple juice for D, we parked and chatted, and I noted that the three men had vanished from the terminal. We were chatting for several minutes when I suddenly spied them loping across the parking lot back towards the terminal again. They had probably been to a nearby convenience store or some such while D and I got drinks.
We decided to brave the wind, the cold, and the desolate parking lot and go wait for the bus, so we did. We quickly froze as we crossed the lot and entered the bus shelter. I say "shelter" in the loosest sense possible, because for all its solid construction it may as well have been a hastily assembled pile of screen doors. Wind resistance was certainly not its strong suit. In the shelter awaited the three men, who were minding their own business, just waiting for the bus. The oldest of them even commented to D on the cold, and she replied in kind, courteously. I don't think she had any suspicions yet as to the nature of the three men, but some had definitely been brewing in the back of my mind.
I noticed that on the ground inside the shelter lay one of the plastic bags the men had been clutching, now empty. The piece of paper was in fact a label. It stated:
"(indecipherable) Police Services." at the top. And further down, "Property Bag, .50 c"
These three people had just been released either from prison, or from a jail cell, having completed their sentence or been parolled or even having met bail. Whatever the case may be, my first assumption was that these men were criminals.
Why did I jump to this conclusion? These men may have been drunk and tossed in the drunk tank overnight. Maybe they had been caught sharing a joint or two, which I don't consider a crime. Maybe it was a case of mistaken identity. I had no idea. All I know was that I suddenly wished I had a police officer nearby to watch these men and make sure they attempted nothing illegal.
I question my reaction because it says a lot about my sense of tolerance that I leapt to immediate distrust of these strangers just because of circumstantial evidence. I was terrified for D, afraid that we would be mugged and beaten, robbed of our funds and left for dead. Why? I had no evidence to justify this reaction, since these men had essentially left us alone, not even giving us suspicious glances.
Should we be immediately suspicious of strangers? Is it the safest thing to do? Or should we fight those impulses and approach even the most intimidating stranger with a sort of cautious optimism?
I know the decision I came to. Keep them in front of me and don't let them see where I put my money.
And make sure D doesn't wave her wallet around like a tiny flag in front of potential criminals.

Rude Nudity

As a lead in to this story, I'd like to announce that I don't have sinus cancer.
This became a concern of mine shortly after I quit smoking, last year in November. Over the following months I started to develop increasingly painful headaches around my nose, my eyes, etc. My ears began to tear up more often, to be more sensitive to cold winds, smoke, and the like. From time to time when I blew my nose there was even a little blood. For a long while I blew this off as simply a side effect of the smoking, that my nasal passages had been dried out by 5 years of smoking a pack a day, and now without the cigarettes my body was finally starting to react.
Well, it just kept getting worse, until feeling unhealthy became kind of my normal day to day mood. A day without a headache was a good day. I didn't complain very often because, well, I don't like to complain unless it's about something silly.
I finally decided to look up my symptoms using that wonderful tool for budding hypochondriacs, the ole interweb.
First possibility I get a response for is sinus cancer. I'm freaked, but I don't want to freak anyone else out, so I downplay it. I tell a few key people who may need to know. D, of course, and my manager at work. I think about going to the doctor, but, well, I'm terrified it's sinus cancer and that I'll go, get tests, and find out I've got six months to live. That would suck.
Finally I decide that since I'm going to be applying for my passport, and my doctor is the perfect guarantor because he literally pried my whiny, crying, annoying self from my mother's body (I don't think I wanted to leave; I've been cold ever since) I should set up an appointment to get my sinuses checked AND get my guarantor section of the passport application filled out. So I had the appointment last Friday.
It was a fairly pleasant trip to the doctor's office. A bit rainy, and my pants got wet, but otherwise I was okay. I got there, took my shoes off outside the office, and sat down to wait. My appintment time came and went, but that's to be expected because doctors are never on time, and I passed the time talking to a lovely older couple about my fears of sinus cancer, and about "kids these days" (see previous post about how old I am).
Eventually the doctor's executive assistant lets me in, and I sit in one of the doctor's exam rooms, and I realize something.
For my entire life, or at least the majority of it, my mother took me to the doctor. I went, got into the room, and she told me to strip to my undies and sit on the paper. That was process. Without fail, I had to get naked.
And all of a sudden I realize that as a 25 year old, I don't know the protocol. Do I need to get naked for the doctor to check my sinuses? Maybe he'll want to check my breathing, make sure that if it's an infection it hasn't spread to my lungs. Should I just take off my shirt? Will a sinus infection affect my reflexes, and thusly will he need me to take off my pants so he can tap my knee with that tiny hammer of his? I have absolutely no idea. None. I start to freak out about what clothes to divest myself of and totally forget why I'm there.
And before I can decide, the doctor comes in and asks me how I'm doing, and my first impulse is to shout "I don't know when to take off my pants!". But luckily I have a fairly good mental blocking mechanism (about 2 out of 3 times it keeps a comment like that from coming out) and I manage to blurt out that I'm worried I have sinus cancer.
He tells me to get on the paper. FANTASTIC! Impulses engage and I strip to my undies and hop on the paper, like a good little five year old.
The doctor takes his little flashlight doohicky and shines it in each nostril, for two seconds.
"Low key infection. Probably environmental."
I discuss treatment options with him, we come to a decision and he prescribes me some nasal spray.
I'm still, at this point, practically naked, so I pause to awkwardly get back into my pants.
"Yeah, you probably only need to take those off for a physical." He tells me, with a very gentle criticism in his voice. Thanks. Great. Good to know. Can you put up a sign next time, doctor?
Now, I'm really comfortable around my doctor, because, like I said, he BIRTHED me (he was quite mistaken when he said I'd be a football player, but that's a story for another time) but I leave his office with the greatest feeling of shame I've had in a long time. I, a relatively healthy 25 yr old male, was unable to grasp the etiquette behind a doctor's appointment.
I don't know now that when it is time for my physical that I am going to be able to muster the courage to drop trou.
I think that when that time arrives, I'll just tell my doctor to go in through the fly.