I have spent much time in the past few days going places. Nowhere exciting or worldly (unless you count T-dot, which I guess is both - it just seems less so in comparison to other Tri adventures happening around the globe), but places that involved vehicles. My encounters in these vehicles were mildly interesting (at least, more so than my usual life), so I'll take you through a few of them.
1.
Cab to bus station - This guy was one of those rare chatty bus drivers that I actually enjoy talking to (I frequently feel as though I have nothing to add to in-cab conversations, for whatever reason). His wife went to school with me (though I didn't actually know her), and he was thinking of going to law school at UWO next year. Nice guy. So he tells me this story about a fare he had on Friday night. He answered a call, and arrived to find six people wanting to get into his cab. "Sorry," he said, "I can't possibly take that many." His fares grumbled, but a lesser number piled into the car. Upon arriving at the destination, one of these passengers drunkenly demanded that the ride be free (presumably because the cab driver hadn't been willing to take six people). My cabbie, naturally, refused. At this point, the kid says "Look, man, you don't know me - I'm in law school and I'm gonna sue you." Can you believe this?! This is the kind of obnoxious law student that gives the rest of them a bad name. News flash, kid: being a law student doesn't give you the right to just make up law. You have to be an English Court of Appeal judge to do that.
2. Bus to T-Dot - Since this ride happened in the middle of the day, I fully expected the bus to be empty. What I didn't count on was that there was an Iron Maiden concert happening in Toronto that night, which naturally meant that the bus was full of punked-out, black-t-shirt-wearing fans. They all seemed very nice, and were in high spirits, comparing seat locations and favourite songs. My "highlight" of the bus trip was when we arrived in town and the girl behind me said to her boyfriend, "Hey, do you wanna go see Joan Collins and Linda Evans in concert?" and he responded "That depends - will they be stripping?" I never did find out whether his attendance was contingent on them stripping or
not stripping, but it's fun to ponder. The Iron Maiden fans' "highlight" of the bus ride seemed to come when one of them stood up to go to the bathroom, wavered a
lot in the aisle (nearly fell down, actually), and said "Whoa, man, this is going to be really hard!" (Laughter from all the other concert-goers.) Upon emerging, he exclaimed loudly "Whoa, man, that was really hard!" (More laughter.) Oh, to be young and on drugs...
3.
Cab to the Restaurant - My whole reason for being in TO in the first place was to have dinner with my Firm. The file that I had spent half of my summer on finally finished, and the partners were nice enough to invite the students to come out with them. Pretty awesome and thoughtful, eh? This cab ride was more just pleasant than anything else. My cabbie was an older, toque-wearing man with an accent that might have been Russian, and he referred to me throughout the ride as "young lady," which I sometimes find patronizing but in this case just found adorable. He actually spent almost an entire trip trip uptown talking about the weather! He had new snow tires for the cab that he was pretty excited about, and he chattered happily about the blizzard in Buffalo and the long, cold winter we're expecting. I was slightly less happy about this prospect. I think it's because I wasn't wearing a toque.
4.
Trip back to the L - My plan had been to take the 1am bus back home after dinner, sleeping the whole way and arriving a little after 3am. The people at dinner had asked how long I was staying, etc., and I told them this. So at the end of the meal, one of the partners turns to me and says "Your limo is here." I thought maybe this was some kind of joke, or that maybe it was code for the bf showing up at the restaurant (which I didn't think he would do; besides, he doesn't have a car). I guess I looked pretty confused, so he repeated himself. I remained confused, so he explained that they hadn't wanted me to take the bus back, so they'd called a limo to drive me back to London. Me = floored. After profuse thanks, I went out to the curb where, sure enough, a uniformed driver was waiting to whisk me away home. The car was big and comfy, with so much leg room I barely knew what to do with it all. There were newspapers and magazines for my reading enjoyment, and a whole bunch of buttons that let me control the radio, the heat, the seat in front of me... I had to restrain myself from just pushing buttons randomly for a few minutes. I finished my cases for the next day of class and had an hour or so of comfy sleep before we whispered into my driveway. Helluva way to end the day.
Thus endeth the tales of my recent adventures in things with wheels. In other news, the varsity season has started up, so I'm full-force into my second big cold (flu?) of the year. Hopefully this time I'll escape
sans antibiotics. I've got a whole week with no class to look forward to (it's midterm week and I have no midterms), so I plan to post more. No promises, though - my bed, as it often does, may turn out to be more appealing.
