The Shadow Would Know...

I need a shadow.

No, not like Peter Pan's. Like they give... ummm.... well, I think the polite term is "mentally handicapped" nowadays. When I was a kid, we just called 'em twits.

Well, I'm a twit, and I need a shadow!

I keep getting off at the wrong bus stop.

I take the number 66 bus. It goes along a beautiful run through Westmount, and the name is "The Boulevard." Some of the houses along the route actually have both the house number and the words "The Boulevard" under the number. Sigh. Wouldn't that be nice, to live at, say, "Fifty-two, The Boulevard"?

The homes are lovely, the trees are dense, the sidewalks wide. The bus rolls up and down, swaying pleasantly... (Hah! Weaving through the potholes - this IS Montreal, after all!) Most of the people on the bus speak English, and they speak to each other. Some of them, myself included, even SMILE occasionally. You only get THAT on the BEST buses...

Then the bus turns, and my troubles begin. See, I have to transfer to another bus, the 144. The timing is perfect - about three minutes after descending the steps of the 66, the 144 turns the corner.

I KNOW it's the stop where I see the Montreal General Hospital. Just that, I usually DON'T see the Montreal General Hospital.

The first day, I saw it, way at the top of the hill, having got off two stops too late and finding myself down at Sherbrook street, having to walk two blocks back UP the hill. That, in itself, really isn't anything much to whine about - except that it was minus a gazillion, the wind was howling, freezing stuff was hitting my face, and both my knees were blowing up...

By chance, the next day, I only got off one stop too late.

So the next day, I got off too early, just to make up for it.

I can't visualize the damned landmarks! I don't know - am I looking for landmarks a driver would see, not a pedestrian? In the bus, you can't see the street names - and that actually doesn't help much, because the bus skirts "Cote-des-neiges" twice.

Today I got off two stops too early. Sighing, and hitching my purse a little higher on my shoulder, I calmly walked toward the goal, the 144 stop two blocks ahead of me, trying in vain to resist the temptation to keep rubbernecking around to see if the 144 was coming yet...

When I did arrive at the stop, about ten seconds before the bus did, one of the nice ladies who's been chatting with me smiled and waved. "So," she said as we climbed in, "Were you getting some exercise this morning?"

"No," I admitted. "Not on purpose, anyway. I just keep missing the stop!"

She proceeded to tell me all the landmarks, especially the hospital. God, that thing is so big, how could ANYBODY miss it?!

Well, I can, apparently!

I had a boss once who told me, "Deborah, you make the most INGENIOUS mistakes of any employee I've ever had. Nobody in their right mind would ever DREAM of making the mistakes you do..."

I guess the key phrase there is "in their RIGHT MIND." I'm a twit, and I need a shadow!

Or a leash...