busing to church

This morning Garrett and I had a funny experience riding the bus to church. It was the sort of experience that could have been so frustrating if I was running late, or irritable. But this morning, being in a good mood, and having had enough rest the night before, I was able to see the comic side of it.

We were standing in the back of a full bus, with a man with a German Shepherd and several other people going to church with us.

At the first stop, the bus driver opened the swinging doors to relieve the bus of a few passengers. When a bus driver is about to close the doors, a buzzing noise goes off. But this time the noise didn't stop. The door closed, and then reopened. Again, and again. The man with the German Shepherd was trying to stand out of the way, probably thinking his coat was blocking the doorway. But it didn't stop, and then Garrett realized that the other bus doors were opening as ours was closing. The bus driver kept opening and closing the doors, trying to get them in sync. Meanwhile, the buzzing of the doors never stopped, because one set of doors was always trying to close.

The hilarity of it all hit me as I watched one set of doors open as the other swung closed. We sat at that bus stop as the bus driver opened and closed the doors probably thirty times.

Finally we pulled off from the stop with the back door open, about 8 minutes behind schedule. The man with the dog held on tight, and no one fell off.

At each of the following stops, the man and dog popped off to make room for exiting passengers. But as soon as they got to the door, the driver opened the other doors to let out passengers, and the passengers trying to exit from the back got locked in!

As we pulled up to our stop, Garrett and I jumped off just as it was pulling to a stop so we wouldn't have to wait for the doors to be re-opened. I was still chuckling over it as we walked up the steps into church.