Fucking Buses (Murphy's Law Part 2)

We've gotten used to missing City Transit's buses, having them not come on schedule - or not at all. So much so that those who complain are viewed as impatient cry-babies or annoying assholes.

Well, I missed one on Saturday night, but I can't blame the STM (the transit 'company'/monopoly) for it. It's more a matter of circumstance, another fine example of Murphy's Law fucking with people's brains.

I was at a friend's house, visiting him for his birthday, in a pretty ghetto part of town that's a bus ride away from a subway station, having a good time, drinking some fine Cuban rum, and actually comparing between two kinds of Havana Club brown rums (5 and 7 anos, respectively). Since he works rather early in the morning at his new job, the plan had always been for me to leave at a relatively early midnight-ish.

Over the course of the evening, plans had developped with a couple of other friends, to meet them at their favourite bar, Le Passeport, smack-dab in the middle of downtown. If I can catch a bus that takes me at the subway station before its closing time (close to 1AM - what kind of self-respecting city doesn't have a 24-hour underground subway service, anyway?), all would be fine. It never happens, I always miss it, but technically, some day, it could.

So we looked at the bus schedules. One bus at 11:55PM, one at 12:27AM, one at 12:51AM. It was 12:15AM. Had we not been in Montreal, I would have done everything in my power to run the 5-minute distance to the bus stop and caught it. But in this city, with the STM's record of punctuality, a 10-minute buffer is nowhere near enough. The bus can be over 5 minutes early, over 5 minutes late, or just decide to not show. We decided it would be safer for me to wait 20 minutes so I could have a realistic shot at the 12:51AM bus, which would lead me to an area of downtown where I'd be a 20-30 minute walk from my destination, or perhaps I'd be lucky enough to have a night bus (what we have to replace the subways at night, which often only come every hour and stop running at 4:30AM) come and take me there.

So I get to the bus stop. There was no way in Hell this was going to be easy. There's a sign that reads ''because of the public works and street repairing, the service at this stop has been moved to the corner of Légaré street''. With no other signalisation, no maps, nothing. I'm not from the area, I have no clue where to go.

So I do the wise thing: stay on the 'main' street, Côte-Des-Neiges, and walk towards where I'm going until I reach either Légaré, or the bus comes back on its route because the repairs zone is done. Cross Plamondon, cross Carlton. Realise Légaré is probably parallel to Côte-Des-Neiges, so I look towards the West for a street big enough to have a bus re-routed there, but the only street worth a light is at least four blocks away. I decide to stay on my path, because four blocks is enough to have the bus zip right past me when I get there, and there is still a chance repairs will end soon and I'll be back on the bus' path. Plus, being on a main street, I can also catch a cab.

It's cold and getting colder. I hail a cab, and tell him to head downtown. Two blocks South, we cross the bus, turning back onto Côte-Des-Neiges. It's already cost me $5 to get into this cab, so I figure ''fuck it'' and stay in it, and head where I'm going directly.

I would never have caught up with the bus on time by walking. But Murphy's Law made it so that by taking the cab, I met up with it. And it's happened so many times with city buses that it feels normal.