smile and the world will smile with you

last week i had another one of those days where i was convinced that the world and everything in it was purposely trying to annoy just me. it’s that time of year around here where the bus schedules get updated, which for my route (99.9% of the time) really only means that the schedule gets a fancy new color, but nonetheless, we get a new driver everyday for a month. commuting in this area can be a rough-go on the best of days, let alone when you throw in a handful of inexperienced bus drivers. since the switch i’ve been getting to work 20 minutes later than usual, getting home 30 minutes later than usual, and experiencing more wrong turns and missed stops than should be legally allowed. so, back to my “world against me day”. all the fore-mentioned adventures had happened thus far in the day, but you have to add a bus driver who not only doesn’t know where he’s going, but will NOT stop talking the entire time as he trains another bus driver on our route even though he has only done it himself once (and horribly at that). if he was just telling the other driver where to go, it would have been one thing, but at 6:50 in the morning, i don’t want to hear your lame traffic jokes, or how you got drunk at a wine tasting event three years ago and then went to work– not so reassuring bud. at the end of the day though, i thought my luck was turning cause i actually caught my return bus by avoiding the elevator and surviving the steep cement stairs in 4” pumps –a mini-miracle all by itself. but just as i was mentally unwinding from the day i heard an odd thump just outside the bus. why not? our bus had collided with another bus and knocked the side mirror off. awesome. “only 5 minutes” the bus driver says – yeah right. so we sit melting in the sun and i am so convinced that i brought on this bad juju that i actually apologize to my fellow passengers. this is not my first bad bus karma -- a flaming car, another side mirror that bit the dust, a fire alarm that wouldn’t quit, random engine failure . . . you name it. but, as i sat wondering why i needed yet another lesson in patience, a guy and his rusty bike rode by my window wearing obnoxious bright-green plaid mini-shorts, that in another life were certainly boxers, and seriously, how can you not smile at that? so, once again the world and I were friends. and really, what can you do? . . . just sit back and laugh.