Rochester buses, Part 3.
Same period of time as my last story. Still no car, again, stuck across the city in the winter at 1:00 am. This time I didn't even get the bus to downtown. And to make it even more fun, it's a freakin' blizzard out there. Literally- visibility was maybe a hundred feet.

So what does the Loon do? Starts walking.

The most direct route I knew home was along the expressway. So I got out there on I-490 and started sticking out my thumb whenever someone would pass by.

Didn't work, of course.

Cursing and shivering I walked as quickly as I could to try to stay warm, knowing that I had about a three hour walk ahead of me. The snow was coming down heavier, making the world into a dimly lit place of swirling motion whose only discernible features were the pavement beneath my feet (which was vanishing under a layer of white) and the buffeting winds and a very cold Loon. The orange glow of the sodium vapor lights made it even more surreal, and all I could think of was the innermost circle of Dante's vision of Hell.

As I trudged along I heard a clattering roar behind me, so I turned and held out my thumb. The headlights slowly went past me- a tow truck pulling a tractor trailer. The driver saw me, of course, but what the hell was he going to do? He was on a job and couldn't stop.

However, he wasn't going that fast yet- he was less than a quarter mile from the last entrance ramp and hadn't gotten up to speed yet. Acting on impulse I ran like hell and grabbed the handles on the doors of the trailer and leaped onto the back bumper, and found myself going about ten miles an hour through the blizzard and accelerating. Congratulating myself on my quick action, I found that I could fit my legs between the trailer and the bumper and sit down, arms over my head, and be relatively comfortable.

Of course, that was when I saw the flaw in my plan.

At thirty miles an hour we weren't going fast enough for it to be quite suicidal to roll off of the thing, but it probably was going to really suck. I stood up again to try to see road signs to figure out where I was- and about then the truck started to slow down. He was getting off the highway, having gotten me a lot closer to home, and I would be glad for wherever we exited from.

As it happened, the exit he got off on was a mile or so from my house.

I waited until he came to a full stop, then jumped off the bumper. I walked along the truck until I came level with the cab, gave the driver a cheery wave and walked toward my apartment, cherishing his look of utter shock.

When public transit lets you down, you sometimes have to improvise.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 29 May 2008, 21:36, Reply)