Metro Journal: May 13 Uh, could you back up a half-mile? Please?

I had one of those mornings where I got to wave at a couple buses from across the street while waiting for the cross walk. (See yesterday's post concerning Bus Car Person rules.) I finally get on the southbound 207 and then promptly space out. Two people behind me are talking loudly about electric foot massagers, so I don't hear the announcement for the Melrose stop. Next thing I know I look out the window, don't recognize anything, and the voice announces the next stop is Beverly. Crap. I get off, watching for the Hollywood/Wilshire DASH which comes this way going north, and start walking back to Melrose. Crap. I'm tired and cranky and already running late. Someone tries to hand me a copy of the Watchtower. Double crap. I should also mention that this walk is up a slight incline. My shins are the first to notice. I get to Western and Melrose, and enough people are waiting for the westbound 10 that I decide I'm waiting for it, too. And it comes in a couple minutes.


I don't leave work until 6:30, but which time the DASH has "officially" stopped running. The last stop in front of work is supposedly 6:26, but, um, this is the DASH we're talking about here. I see the eastbound 10 I thought I got out just in time for drive by, so I start walking. My head is apparently still in low Earth orbit, so it actually goes quickly. The 207 comes a couple minutes later.

While I'm waiting at Hollywood and Western for the 780, I start to try to apply Einstein's General Relativity to buses. The 780 is technically supposed to come every 15 minutes at that time of day, but it can not only seem longer, but according to my watch be longer. It's like, the farther they get from their starting point, the more time stretches and the distance between the buses expands until... ok, that's just not working. And to deliver the death blow to my theory, the 780 shows and then two cars behind it, another one. I get on the first one, because the second one gets stopped at the light and a bird in the hand... I've seen them leapfrog stops sometimes when they're in tandem, and this bus still has a couple seats open anyway.

Oddly, this bus opens its doors at random places when it's stopped at a light, nowhere near a regular stop. Someone actually gets out at one. And I'm not even talking about what would be stops for a 180 Local on this route. Just... odd.