arc of time

ah yes, you remember the #38. it’s the chastain park route that runs from lindbergh through buckhead to chastain park. you probably remember it because it was the progenitor of my biggest scheduling snafu so far riding the buses and the rails.

last night the #38 screwed me again. i telecommuted yesterday so i was in my living room working all day, but still had my class to go to at peachtree pres all the way up in buckhead. i decided, of course, to take marta. now i learned my lesson last time with the #38, and while i hate to do it, i now drive my car to inman park when i am going to church to forestall a repeat of that disaster. very prescient too as the rest of the story will bear out.

there are basically three different tactics i can employ to get to peachtree pres. first is the most direct, take the #38 from lindbergh directly to peachtree pres. it’s elegant, but carries some risk in that the #38 only comes once an hour. the second is again to go to lindbergh and then take the #5 north, getting off at piedmont and habersham and walking about .5 miles to church. finally, i can go to buckhead and take the #34 or the #110 to peacthree and roswell road for a .5 mile walk.

coming from alpharetta i almost always employ that last solution. it’s a nice walk and i don’t want to risk missing the 6:00 pm #38 and being stuck at lindbergh waiting on th #5 (whose schedule isn’t really advantageous after 6:00 pm because of the walk.)

but coming from home it shouldn’t have been a problem at all. i got to inman park with plenty of time and even got to lindbergh 35 minutes ahead of the #38′s departure time of 6:00 pm. i briefly thought about cruising all the way up to buckhead but decided waiting at lindbergh was just as good.

bad decision.

the #38 didn’t show up until 10 after 6 and then the driver got off the bus and didn’t come back until 6:22. she said nothing about how late she was and just took off. i was around 12 minutes late to church class.

coming back more of the same. the #38 is supposed to come by my church around 7:40. last night, 8:20. no lie. at one point a marta bus being towed actually came down roswell road, which was probably why it was all messed up.

so fool me once, but not twice. i think i will be exploring the #5 from now on.

here is the thing though, i was warned i would get frustrated at times. i was warned that trying to take public transportation would mess up my schedule and get me agitated. and it sure did last night. but who cares? my frustration last night didn’t come within 10 per cent of matching the frustration i used to feel not moving on 400 waiting to merge onto 85. so i’ll take it, warts and all.