Taking Chances

So, this arvo it got to 4pm and it was seriously pissing down. At that moment I reflected on the moment I walked out the front door this morning, realised I had not brought an umbrella, looked up at the grey sky and decided I would chance it. Unwise.

At 5pm it was still pissing down. I started to fret a little, having to walk to uni and all for my 6pm class. At 5.15pm it eased up a little and I decided to make my dash. Hurried goodbyes all round, and I was outta there. At 5.18pm I had made it as far as my bus stop where I had one of those moments where you stop and go back and forth in your mind really quickly - chance it and keep walking across the park where there is no hope of shelter or stand and wait 10 mins for the bus, knowing that the traffic will be crapola in the rain and I will be late for class. And did I mention I was weighing this up whilst huddling under a large tree branch, as Melbourne, home of unpredictable weather, doesn't do covered bus shelters?

So, I decided on option B which turned out to be for the best as about 90 seconds later it started to come down HARD. My branch actually didn't do too bad a job protecting me, a bag of groceries from the market, my uni books and a package I got in the mail, all lined up in a row to get maximum branch coverage. I was well impressed. Not very dry, but less wet than I would have been without my branch, and suitably impressed all the same.

As I stood there looking more bedraggled than bedazzled I saw two girls walking past with those giant corporate golf umbrellas. I waited with anticipation for one of them to take pity on me and say "here you go, take this giant tent/umbrella and I will share with my friend. No, don't worry about it! We have heaps in the office and you look like you need it more than I do". And then I could have repaid my kindness debt by being exceptionally generous to another stranger when the time came too! It didn't happen. Bitches.

(Oh, have I mentioned yet that I had dimmies for lunch again and was riding the everything is poetic and beautiful post-dimmie delusions? I really want to know what the secret ingredient is, seriously someone could make a lot of money off that stuff.)

But once I was on the bus, I realised why fate had thrown me this inconvenient peak hour storm. It was for my love of interesting strangers! Oh yes, today it CERTAINLY was. First up I hear a mobile phone going off, and then in one of those loud mobile phone voices a rather camp chap saying "let it all out, tell me EVERYTHING". That seemed like a very personal thing to say so loudly on a crowded bus, so of course my little ears were pricked for some serious eavesdropping. I could ascertain that he was speaking to a girl who was at the time sitting in a loading dock dealing with some kind of work crisis that was escalated by someone called Tiffany who has it out for her and is generally jealous of her fabulous life. All well and good, but it was just going around in circles so I lost interest reasonably quickly.

That's when the stranger of my dreams got on the bus. He was about 7 foot tall which straight away captures your attention, and when he stood next to me and put his hand out to grab the pole right in front of my face, I nearly died. Seriously. He had an essay scrawled all over the back of his hand and halfway up his forearm in crazy kind of kid writing. Or just your usual bad boy writing, but particularly bad. Oh boy oh boy it was beautiful. His notes were either:

A. A list of pros for getting off drugs, or
B. A list of cons for getting off drugs.

I couldn't really decide. How I wish I could have remembered them all to share here, I really tried, I really did, but the back of my mind was still a little panicky about being late for uni and so I was ill equipped to take it all in long term. Here are some gems I do remember:

Goodness
Ebullient (I liked that one)
Detached from the senses
Concentration without fixation

And oh how the list went on. Glorious, happy times I had. Wonderful. I wonder if he realised that he made my day?

Alas, after finishing class at 10pm I found it significantly more difficult to find joy in waiting 20 minutes for the next bus. The cops pulled up to the housing block behind the bus stop at one point and again I had vain hopes that being good Samaritans with nothing else to do they might offer to drop me home. Again, I was more than willing to pass on the love. Didn't happen either. Bitches. So I did 10 lunges (on each leg!) and 20 squats to pass the time (and no doubt amuse the passing traffic).

And now I'm just finishing my peppermint tea and am going to hit the sack. I have a stressful 5 day birthday festival weekend coming up you know. Fuckin A!