#6443

Back to work after a lovely, weatherwise, Memorial Day weekend. I think 3-day weekends should become the standard and let holidays create 4-day weekends - very recuperative.

Took the 6:57AM 81N this morning. As I stood at the bus stop, working on posture improvement, up walks the OCD bus time guy! Last I saw him on Guadalupe at the 66/92 stop when he talked me into riding the 92 to Rural and catching the 72N. If you recall, he talked non-stop about bus times while constantly opening his cell phone to check the hour. Today he kept stepping into the street to peer south, looking for the bus. He came over to me and asked if I took this bus regularly. I advised him I flexed my bus riding times and he asked if we'd ridden together before. I said we had indeed ridden a 92/72 combo together.

He wanted to catch the 521 express bus that goes across Southshore and ends up on *-10 into downtown Phoenix. He explained he usually catches it on Rural but only had a pass for local, not express and needed change and got a paper and etc., etc., etc. He then launched into a discussion of times related to the 521 coinciding with the 81N and he had a few minutes of play, IF the 6:57 arrived on time. He showered me with a blizzard of bus times and route information; however, today he only checked his cell phone one time. He saw the bus coming and seemed quite pleased that the public transportation gods smiled on him today. We got on the bus, he sat in the seat behind me and, as he departed, he leaned forward and commented on the lovely weather! No mention of time, bus connections - just the weather.

While, as a fellow bus rider, I completely understand the time obsession, I thought his particular brand of time watching could be the tip of a freaky iceberg. However, since he shared a normal, non-bus related remark, perhaps he just likes to talk bus?