Today my morning commute had a few oddities in it. I call them oddities because whilst every commute is different there are certain things that are for certain. It is certain that some people get on the 7am 814 every day be cause they need to for their job, or that no matter what bus you catch at no matter what time of day, the drivers will always wave at each other when they pass. These are what I hold in my mind as the constants of my morning, so when they do change, it’s an oddity.
Firstly, and the namesake of this post, the 814 passing us down lake road ((where the two busses never pass- there are always two streets the busses pass each other on and this was not one of them!)) not only was it not where it was meant to be, BUT IT WAS RED. The busses aren’t red???? They’re always purple ??? It was like they had stripped a City Link bus of its patches and sent him away. This was mildly alarming to me. It was a naked bus too! No ads or even AT branding! Just Red. The only indicator of its purpose was the orange spot LED’s that read: 814 Devonport.
Another 814 oddity this morning was that for the first time I actually got to see the 7am Baby. The 7am Baby is a passenger duo that get on every morning at the stop opposite Takapuna Grammar – a mother and (normally) a pram with a baby in it. The pram is always jam packed with blankets and or parked facing away from me, so I’ve never actually seen the child before. For a while there I did entertain the possibility that there wasn’t actually a child in there yet and that she was on her way to go get one every morning. I could have confirmed my hypothesis by taking my headphones out and turning my loud music off to see if I could hear the baby but I never actually cared that much so I didn’t. HOWEVER ! This morning she got on without the pram, and the baby was on her hip. I hate children, I never want one, and I normally don’t find them cute, but as much as I can try to pretend otherwise, this was quite a cute baby.
The next not necessarily oddity but a humorous synchronicity that occurred this morning as I was going along the stretch of road between the city entrance on Fanshaw street and the harbour bridge. One day when I was driving along there I saw the most amazing shape in the houses, but because I was driving I couldn’t take a photo of it. Every single time I go past there I look for it, hoping to catch it on camera. This morning, I got ready to find it, craned my neck and started to search, and as I did the lyrics in the song I was listening to said “saw you once before, but now you’ve disappeared” and I got a great amount of joy from that.
Finally, as I was nearing the end of my commute, I was on the NX2 and we were just coming up Wellesley street, and when I went to push the button I had the absolute PLEASURE of pushing a horizontal stop button on the windowsill. When I first saw the horizontal buttons I thought they were stupid. I thought, how can they be as satisfying as pushing the vertical ones! I thought they were very unbussy. Oh boy was I wrong. They are magnificent. It has the satisfaction level of pressing the top of one of those counter bells at a hotel, except without the guilt that comes from summoning a person with a bell.
So that was my morning 🙂
becks ireland 