The other morning, as I was getting ready to attend my Monday morning class, something told me to leave earlier than what I had anticipated. As I opened my front door expecting to drive to school, (approximately 40 minutes of travelling) my car was nowhere to be found. What happened was dear old daddy-o forgot I had school that morning and therefore hijacked my car to go to the gym instead of taking his which is a total gas alcoholic.
Basically, I now had to take the bus and metro and shuttle bus to school, and re-mentally prepare myself for what was in store for me. The funny part, was that a day before I had read a letter another lady had written to the STM about her very “special” experiences with public transportation. I thought she was exaggerating until experiencing this particular morning with the STM for myself.
So here’s my letter.
Dear STM,
Forgive me, but my experience already started off on the wrong foot since I unexpectedly had to use your services on a Monday morning; a very early Monday morning might I add. As I started to walk to one of your stops near a park, not only was my ass freezing cold and my face about to fall off because apparently winter was closer than I thought, but your bus also left 3 minutes before schedule. Apparently your bus takes off at 7:19 am instead of 7:22 am. Therefore, I did my morning cardio and had to pull a sprint with my pagmina blowing in my face as I ran to catch your 131. Once in your bus, my pants were halfway down my ass and my hair looked like I got electrocuted by all the light sockets in New York City. This was not the look I was going for on this morning might I add.
My bus ride to the metro was quite a joy. Local school girls pilled on by the dozen at each stop, as I asked myself if I was ever that annoying when I was in high school. The answer was no, not even close. Regardless, I got to the metro five minutes earlier than expected and was ready to get blown away by the wind once again after exiting the bus. One of the things I don’t understand about your 131 bus is why the hell does it stop 100 meters away from the door of the metro? The worst part is that, once everyone is forced off, the bus does a turn and ends up right in front of the metro doors. Is it because the bus is too heavy to make the turn with a boat load of people? Or is it because the driver needs to have private time before getting to my exact destination?
As I was about to enter the metro doors, and to my very luck, the current of the doors nearly and literally almost blew my face right over my head. It was inevitable that this was probably going to be the worst hair day I had ever had. After being pushed and shoved to the side by speed walking people hurrying to catch the next metro, I realized the escalators were still not fixed since the previous week. Therefore, I had to commence running down the stairs, since the people behind me were all on speed, while praying not to fall flat on my face.
Once at the metro, I had to load up my opus card; what a joy! 77 dollars later, I was left with two dollars in my bank account. I thought public transportation was meant to encourage people to go save money on gas and not to take out a loan to pay their monthly bus passes. Or maybe its just me complaining.
By the time I got to school on this morning, I was mentally, physically, and emotionally drained out. However, the morning wasn’t the worst part of my day.
As I rode the bus back to your guy-concordia metro station, I was finally happy for this day to come to an end. Long behold, the famous “tah nah nah nahhh” sounding bell rang and your leading voice lady said “attention, une incendie causera un arret de service sur la ligne verte entre les stations berri-uqam et honore-beaugrand. Le service devra reprendre at 14h45. D’autre message suivrons.” To my luck, this was the exact direction I was going in and it was barely 2:00…which meant waiting at least 1 hour to go home before even starting to go home.
Because of this “incident,” I was stuck having to take all three different metro lines to get home. My metro ride was another very enjoyable one. Squashed between one man’s bare armpit and another man’s chest behind me, I did not know where to look. So I decided to just close my eyes and pretend that I wasn’t surrounded by 1000 people in one metro cart on my desperate-to-get-home metro ride.
After suffering through changing metro lines, and surviving the stampede’s of thousands of people, I finally embarked on the final bus to my home. I believe one of your employees was also having a bad day that day since all I heard coming out of his mouth were “tabarnack, estie, and caulisse,” all while I was reading the “our employees also deserve respect” sign just a few feet away from the driver.
After surviving the wrath of my bus driver, I finally was one street away from my home on foot. The only thing missing on this day was to get shat on by a bird as I walked at 2 miles an hour for how physically and mentally exhausted I was from just transporting myself to and from school with your service. The first thing I did when I got home was take the most appreciated shower of my entire lifetime. I literally smelled worst than a hobo on Sherbrooke street’s armpits squeegeeing car windows in scorching heat all day. Might I add, not by choice and merely because of the dozens of peoples body odors I was surrounded by on this beautiful Monday.
On that note, dear STM, I encourage you to maybe re-organize yourselves in order to encourage and not scare off the public. Or at least reducing your transportation fees and maybe giving other users a lesson on personal hygiene when using public transportation.
Until then, I’ll go give my car a giant hug for always being there for me and smelling like Vanillaroma.
Your Friend,
S.
The Everyday Diva 