This new life phase can be rife and rippling with frustrations and regrets, but if there's one thing I can count on to drive me clear over the guardrails of sanity, it's my new commute. Time was, I got on a local subway, it took 25 minutes, I got off, boom. Done. A routine you could set your watch to, if there wasn't a Mysterious Package, or Police Activity, or Half An Inch of Rain on the Tracks. But now I live in the outer regions of Netherwhere, which lies two subways and a bus trip away. And the permutations of failure are exponentially more manifold.
Sometimes the express leaves on time; sometimes it just sits there, expelling fumes like a ponderous, farting manatee. Sometimes the express has concave seats that welcome the buttocks; sometimes convex seats that splay them unnaturally. Sometimes the local waits across the platform; sometimes it goes missing for weeks. Sometimes the local is the filthiest conveyance known to man; sometimes it's the second filthiest. Sometimes the bus waits 15 minutes while the entire state of Rhode Island gets on; sometimes it's only Delaware. Sometimes, the bus door has closed, and when you knock extra nicely and beg ingress, the miserable gastropod behind the wheel fixes you with a blank stare and floors it across the park.
On any given day, my commute can last anywhere from 40 minutes to a day and a half, and the part of my brain that craves normalcy more passionately than a border collie is starting to feel the strain. I mean, I like adventure as much as the next guy, just not at oh-butt-early o'clock.
