Friday, July 8, 2011


Doesn't take long, just a moment's inattention, even when you're convinced you know an area well, to take you off course. Sometimes it's a trifle of an inconvenience, and on the rare occasion, should such an occurrence happen, it becomes somewhat more than that. You suddenly, at a point of attention, find yourself in unfamiliar surroundings, moreover surroundings that threaten to become far more than an inconvenience.

You've been so engrossed in something unrelated to driving and getting to where you mean to be headed that you completely overlook warning signs. Like one that reads "bus lanes only", and find yourself irretrievably headed in a direction you had no intention of pursuing, in a corridor of specialized traffic where the main highway is no longer in direct sight, that definitely excludes vehicles other than municipal buses.

You know there's a fine of $150 for such a traffic offence. And you desperately look everywhere for indications that you will soon be able to extricate yourself, but nothing appears and you keep driving forward because there's nothing else you can do. You realize that you're headed far, far from your destination. And you understand also that there's potential danger in what you're doing, even though you don't mean to be doing it.

Buses are accelerating at an incredible speed to pass you, a lone, cowering little red car on a 'buses only' corridor, with other buses seeming to be headed directly toward you on the narrow roadway. There's a very dark underpass right ahead and you think 'what if' it turns out to be a one-way set-up and buses are zooming right for you?

You make it out of the long tunnel and find yourself headed toward a kind of rendezvous-point for buses to assemble, and you finally come to the relief of a halt, as you exit your vehicle and make for a driver sitting in a bus that has a sign on the front reading 'out of commission'.

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