Ghost Bus

Catching the bus in the morning is a complete game of chance. Some days, you get a seat right away and it take 10 minutes to get to work. Some days, the bus is full and you have to stand, but at least you have some personal space. Some days, you jam in to the annoyance of a frazzled bus driver and choke on the overly strong perfume of the person standing next to you for the eternal amount of time it takes to go a little over a mile in traffic.

And some days, you catch the ghost bus.

I’m not sure why it happens, but every morning at approximately 8:10 a completely empty bus pulls around the corner of Harvard and 16th St. (where I happen to catch the bus in the morning). Whenever I catch it, it feels like a good omen for whatever is to come in the rest of the day. I’ve nicknamed it the ghost bus, because it is always so much emptier than anything else that comes along. One morning not only was the bus empty, but I was the only person at the first stop, and for two glorious blocks I was the only rider on an entire DC metro bus at rush hour. If you live in any metropolitan area, you will understand what a thing of beauty that is.

Now that spring is here, if it ever stops raining, I’ll start riding my bike to work again. I took a bit of a hiatus in the winter months, partly due to the cold, and partly due to a few bike and non-bike related injuries. In the meantime I have been walking to work a bit (at least until the tree pollen really got going, yay allergies!). Even though catching the ghost bus is a highlight of my commute, I’m pretty anxious to leave it behind for a while.