I sat waiting for the wrong bus at the wrong bus stop to get to my interview the other day.
Yeah. I mentally winced too.
And it was after I swiped my card and verified its destination that the driver told me that I was getting onto the wrong line. The one I wanted was about four blocks away.
Did I mention that it was really hot that day? Yeah, I was sitting at a bus stop in the sweltering heat in a suit, because I care about my future! Clearly, I didn't care about my smell or my uneven tan lines developing, though I'm sure my interviewer would. The smell. Not my tan lines.
That's okay, I thought, spinning this into this thought: "smell that? That's determination and hard work!" It's also the smell of a loss girl wandering New York, trying to figure out the bus lines.
I found the right stop after having a nervous fit and swallowing the stress building in me. I power walked, building more of that eau de "hard work" around me like a cloud. My face was shiny as I stood at the right stop this time, my blazer under my arm.
But, the Universe tends to pick on me, and what I thought would be a ready-fix, turned out to be a forty-five minute wait for the right bus.
My heart leapt every time I saw a bus come up, and as it turned out to be the wrong one, my heart dropped into my stomach, where they had a meeting and agreed that they didn't like one another invading his personal space. Subsequently, this resulted in what I can only assume to be a top-that sort of brawl a la Teen Witch.
Or so it felt.
And as the time passed by, and as my nerves and stress compounded, I told myself not to throw up. That that smell would just be worst on top of my hard work smell. Mathematically, I knew it took at least forty minutes to get where I needed, and I only had thirty minutes to get there. Ten minutes, I reasoned, couldn't be that bad in the grand scheme of things.
I was once running ten minutes late to a vet appointment, so I called ahead to tell them and they laughed, telling me that that wasn't late, though they appreciated my phone call.
But that was in the South, where they drink lemonade and speak real slow! This was the big city, which had no mercy! Besides, my stomach and heart were still doing that weird battle every time I thought about it, so I quickly sent an e-mail to the interviewer, telling him of my dilemma and apologizing profusely but not too profusely to look sad. Control. I was in control.
The bus came there eventually as they were wont to do, and I hurled myself on as if that would make a difference. It was almost anti-climatic how easy the bus drove down the street and stopped and helped handicapped passengers. Relaxed.
But guess who got there on time?
Also, guess who got there on time and before the interviewer?
Yeah, this girl.
Whatever Universe. I don't need your pity.