THOSE MAGNIFICENT RETAILERS AND THEIR DRIVING MACHINES
(or "I Really Should Have Posted This Sunday Night")
From the blogger's diary this past Sunday...
i'm at the kiosk right now, covering one of mel's shifts so she in turn can spend her day off with that most joyous of things: researching & writing 2 term papers. (an i'm also having a hell of a time doing this too, which brings us to 'today's lesson': no matter how much the i.t. department insists otherwise, an english keyboard and a french keyboard are not the same thing. i can't capitalize anything without pressing this weird other button that sits where the shift key should be, and will someone tell me how to get the friggin' quotation marks to show up...and i can't even figure out how to get a question mark to show up either. i hate this keyboard. anyhoo, as anyone in the toronto and nearby affiliated areas can attest, it snowed. lots. so let's have a brief breakdown of how i got to work today. mel normally drives me/us there, but it's rather pointless for her to drive me out across town and then drive home to work on her papers. it wastes time for her. i was ready to catch a bus down to the mall instead. but as it would fortuitously happen, gary was over helping my mom out with some accounting work. she offered to drive me up to the mall before going over the offices with gary. and all was good. however...by the time we started out early sunday morning, the roads for the most part had not yet been ploughed, and my mother didn't entirely trust her driving skills to navigate a rather treacherous-even-without-snow route through town. (and after seeing a number of cars along the way trapped, crashed and angled acros the road, i can't say i blame her.) so my mom opted to get me a taxi, for which she'd pay the fare. all was good. however...all of the taxi serives were backlooged due to weather and church calls. the earliest one could arrive to pick me up 15 minutes before i had to be at the kiosk. (it takes at least 20 to get through town to the mall.) so my mom drove me over the bus station, a mere 2 minutes away, so i could catch a bus to the mall. (and instead of paying the taxi fare, she handed me a bus ticket, so still no paying for me.) the plan was i could catch one of the buses going to the mall, and still arive with about 15 minutes to spare before everything had to open. and all was good. however...the bus i needed to get into the kiosk on time was pulling out just as i nearly broke my ass running down the stairs after it. the next bus going out to the mall would leave right before the mall opened, making me very distinctively late. all was crumbling before me, and i cursed a great many things, most of all the snow and malls being open on sundays. however...as I was idling about for the bus, i spotted a taxi cab driving along a sideroad leading towards the terminal. on a whim/hunch/wild-assed hope, i meandered over to the front of the bus depot, and was pleasantly surprised to see the taxi pull into the front. no one was inside. i popped open the door and asked the driver if he was waiting for a pick-up (to whom i would have defaulted to, since i'm not fond of stealing someone's ride when they rightfully called for it first), but huzzah for the driver saying 'nope.' i piled on in, got whipped up to the mall and arrived with just enough time to get everything primed for opening. the rest of the shift was pleasantly dull and uneventful. but to summarize: my proposed modes of transportation for today went from car to bus to car to taxi to bus to taxi. be bedazzled by my reorg skills, people.Labels: a change of driving plans, snow
posted by Phillip at 9:30 PM
