There was good and bad news in para-transit land for me yesterday.
The good: I didn't have to ride with my least favorite driver. Or should I say: One of my least favorite drivers. Luckily, I like most of the drivers. There are a few that get on my nerves for various reasons. My usual Tuesday morning driver irritates me because she constantly complains about the traffic and other drivers, laughs at her own joke attempts in an annoying way, and generally has a running stream of consciousness commentary during the ENTIRE trip. It is impossible to drown out this woman with an audio book or music. Her voice is rather loud and shrill. One of my favorite trips was last week, when she spent most of the ride telling the passengers how sick she was, complete with barking coughs and graphic descriptions of her trips to the bathroom. When we arrived at the library, I tried to hold my breath as I exited the vehicle and thanked her, then hurried inside to wash my hands. If I could have hosed myself down with Lysol I would have.
The bad news of yesterday's excursion was that I had a new driver who was pretty much completely lost. He arrived more than twenty minutes after my ride window closed, which means I was waiting nearly an hour. The reason why he was so late? He was following his tablet GPS religiously, as most new drivers do. The problem is, the GPS on these tablets must be from around the time that GPS systems were first invented. Translation: They suck! The GPS says to turn right when you need to turn left. It sends you in all kinds of crazy ass zigzags, circles, and roundabouts. The GPS always becomes confused around my apartment complex. If we are coming from one direction, it says to make a u-turn when we are fifty yards from the destination. From the other direction, it tells us to turn right when the correct answer is left. So this driver was meandering around at 7 am, when it was still dark, trying to find where I live. And unfortunately, most new drivers are too worried about getting in trouble to admit that they're lost.
The situation did not improve once I finally boarded the vehicle. Because then the driver's tablet went on the fritz. Even though the GPS had failed him repeatedly, he was still panicked to lose access to the piece of crap. So for awhile he was repeatedly looking at his tablet, trying to get it to work, tapping various icons and attempting to restart the device. This was all happening while he was DRIVING in heavy traffic ON THE FREEWAY. I wanted to snatch the tablet and toss it out the window.
About halfway to work, the tablet was resurrected and the GPS resumed spewing its useless information. So I made an executive decision and took over GPS duties. Which anyone who knew me years ago would laugh at, because I used to be the worst at giving directions. I was baffled by north, south, east, west, right, left, sideways - all of it. If you asked me how to get from one place to another, I would look at you as if you were speaking a foreign language. But now I can not only give directions, I can actually provide options for different routes! Take that older-than-dirt GPS!
Miracle of miracles, I arrived at work on time (barely), and physically intact (although more than a little harried). So in the end, which was better: annoying female or clueless male driver?
Hard to say.
librarianintx
