Hillary and I were studying, and as it came to be dinner time, Hillary comes up with a great idea. "Hey, we should go get Five Guys for dinner!" Totally needing a break, and seeing as how I don't think I've ever really eaten there before, I agreed.
However, neither of us have cars. Neither of us were with roommates who had cars and were available.
So. We decide to take the city bus. It would be good to figure out at sometime, right? Well, that's just the beginning of the story...
After about 20 minutes of looking at a tiny iPod screen to figure out where the bus stops were, we had a few minutes to get to the bus stop from Hillary's apartment. We ran there, thinking it was funny that we had to run and hurry to go buy burgers. How much more American can we get? Maybe if we were wearing a Hawaiian shirt, socks with sandals, and had American flags waving in each hand, that could count.
Anyways, we got on the bus, and were so proud of ourselves for figuring this out. We made it to the bus transit station, where we had to switch buses. Now we were really confused. We thought we knew which stop we had to get off at, but turns out...we didn't. When the bus stopped across the street from Five Guys, we were so happy that we got on the right bus that we didn't pull the string to tell the driver we needed to stop. Two people got on, and we walked up to the door to get off, but the doors shut on us. Little Miss Cranky Bus Driver told us that we didn't pull the cord and didn't know that we needed to get off, and next time we needed to pull it to get off. Sheesh. Let's just say Hillary and I knew at that point in time that neither of us desire to be a bus driver later in life.
We crossed the street, got our food, and then quickly realized that we needed to leave to get to the bus stop in time.
This is where it gets funny and embarrassing and even a little scary at the same time.
We left to where we thought the bus stop was, and were even 10 minutes early, just to make sure we wouldn't miss it. (The buses were stopping after this last pick-up/drop-off so if we missed it...we missed it.) We stood by this sketchy bench by an auto-part shop, and a guy told us that no bus was coming to that stop. No buses had come for several weeks. Panicked, now with only a few minutes to spare, we awkwardly ran to the stoplight to cross the street--with brown paper bags filled with greasy fries, fry sauce and hamburgers in one hand and cold drinks in the other.
As we approached the stoplight, we could have crossed, but there were only about 8 seconds or so left on the crosswalk. We probably could have made it if we ran, but I hate rushing across crosswalks. I told Hillary we'd just wait for the next light, and play it safe. BAD IDEA. As we were sitting there, waiting for the light to turn, OUR BUS CAME THROUGH THE INTERSECTION. There it went. Our ride. Flew past our station because we weren't at the stop on the other side of the street.
Hillary and I stared at each other, nervously laughing, and worried about how we'd get home, where we'd eat our food, and whether or not we'd make it through the night.
We crossed the street, and realized our next best bet would be to find another bus stop nearby. We frantically pulled out the bus map that we thankfully grabbed in one of the buses. We laughed, and almost cried, trying to figure out where we needed to go. Pretty dang sure cars that passed us thought we were drunk. Just imagine this scenario--two girls, out on the streets, carrying brown paper bags with them, and laughing at night time, staring at a map...yeah, pretty sketch.
We found a bus stop a few blocks away, and stopped there. By then our drinks were gone, and we were pretty worried. It was dark outside, and we didn't know where we were. Thanks bus map. We didn't see the times listed for this particular stop and were worried that we either missed the bus or it was like the last stop and a bus hadn't come there for a few weeks.
Hillary eventually called a guy in her ward to come rescue us, but it was a little awkward. She hardly knew him, and this was kind of a big favor. A few minutes later, after we had given extremely confusing directions, he was on his way to get us.
In this time, however, the bus that we had found the stop for came crawling by. We saw it in the distance and panicked. "No, no, no, no. Matt's on his way. Just keep walking so that the bus doesn't think it has to stop for us." We awkwardly walked around, and the bus passed. Oh, did I mention we're pretty much creeping around on a middle school campus at this bus stop? Yeah. I was worried we'd be pinned by a police officer either for trespassing on school property, looking like we were drunks or some scum of the street. Thankfully that didn't happen. But as we continued to wait for Matt to come pick us up, THE SAME BUS CIRCLED AROUND AND PASSED US AGAIN. Awkwardly seeing it again, we started walking down the sidewalk, hoping that the bus wouldn't stop and ask if we needed a ride.
Thankfully, Matt pulls up a few moments later, and we get in the car. He dropped us off at the apartment, and was extremely nice.
Hillary and I went up to her dorm and ate our now cold fries and soggy burgers. Yum...
However crazy this night was, it has definitely been one of the most memorable and fun filled nights I've had, especially since being up here.
Thank you, Hillary, for making me laugh and going on extremely random adventures with me. It makes for some great memories!
Live. Love. Laugh. Grow.
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