On The Commuting Front . . .

Well, yesterday I woke up before the roosters and met my cubemates on the early bus - I mean early, like it's the first bus of the morning at 5:15 a.m. Yes, that means I have to leave my house by 5 a.m. to make it to the bus stop in time. Errgh!! I did it, much to my dismay. We arrived at the Brookhaven Station by 6:25 a.m. or maybe a tad earlier. Our shuttle (again, the first one of the morning) doesn't arrive until 6:45 a.m. So, what did we do with that extra time - of course, we proceeded across Peachtree Road to visit the local Dunkin' Donuts. Well, I just couldn't resist getting a chocolate frosted raised donut - heck, why not? How many WW points could it possibly be? I also had the audacity to order a medium coffee with Equal (really, would it make any difference at this point if I used real sugar?). She asked if I'd like cream and as I was pondering the Equal/sugar thing, I unconsciously blurted out, "Yes, I would like cream". When I had focused again, I figured if I was going to treat myself to a donut, I wouldn't miss out on the cream, too. The deed was done! I sipped my coffee on the shuttle ride to the office and devoured the donut at my desk shortly after I arrived. It was heaven, I must say. And it definitely satisfied that "need" to have a sweet, fattening, treat! It also used six of my 22 points allotted for the day. "Blasted!", I thought but you know, this is what WWs does, it teaches you to eat right and not to waste calories on stuff like that. Lesson learned! No more donuts! (first one I've had in about a year!)

So with that being said, this morning I decided I would take my regular bus at 5:35 a.m. It would give me another 20 minutes prep time and NO TIME to walk over to Dunkin Donuts to be tempted, once again. It's all strategy, you know? Well, I must have missed the 5:35 a.m. bus by a minute or two so had to wait for the next bus at 5:50 a.m. No biggie, I thought, I'd still get to work around 7:15 a.m. or so.

As we were heading down I-20, the "in-training" bus driver took the Six Flags exit. I immediately woke from my nap, having noticed the shift of the bus and eventual stop at a red light. This was not the usual route - not at all. The regular bus driver took over at that point. He meandered around Six Flags, on past Charlie Brown Airport, to MLK Drive. I hadn't the foggiest idea where he was taking us. I honestly thought I may have gotten on the wrong bus but there are only two that come to my bus stop and they both take you downtown to the MARTA station. So, I patiently listened to my music on my Zune, all the while carefully watching where the driver was going. He eventually looped around and hopped on I-285 ending up at the I-285/I-20 interchange. I was so disoriented, I had no idea if we were heading North, South, East or West. He did get on I-20 from there and then we were definitely heading East. Good, I thought, it wouldn't be long and I would be on the train heading North to Brookhaven. Unfortunately, as I was running down the escalator, I soon saw the tail end of a train heading that direction so had to wait on the next one. Another near miss (story of my life).

I finally arrived at the Brookhaven Station only to see our shuttle bus leaving the Station. Again, a near miss, what, is there a full moon or what? So, we had to wait on the next shuttle. I say "we" because there were 12 other Department of Revenue employees waiting as well. There are usually two shuttles running and they show up every 15 minutes. As we were waiting, a very strange man was walking up to the Station. I had seen him a few mornings ago as well. He is carrying two white plastic bags that look like they are from a department store and I can see they are both packed full of something. The other morning when I saw him, he was carrying the two white overstuffed plastic department store bags, as well. This morning as he is nearing the turnstiles to enter the Station, he is glaring at our group, with his head cocked, peering over his glasses. I mean he has stopped dead in his tracks, and is flat out staring. He eventually enters the turnstiles and heads up the escalator. The other morning he actually approached where my cubemates and I were sitting and walked around us doing the same thing - head cocked, peering over his glasses, and flat out staring at us. I didn't think that much about this strange man the other morning, thinking it was a fluke and most likely I would never see him again. I must say that I have not felt uncomfortable or scared riding MARTA until this morning. I cannot imagine what he is looking at! Maybe he wants to ask one of us about his taxes? Who knows? In any event, it is quite unnerving, to say the least. I'm just thankful there are scads of people milling about so I'm not standing there all by myself!

To summarize the commute this morning with one word - weird. Just plain old weird. And this is the icing on the cake of weirdness encountered today - as we were waiting on our shuttle, a white stretch limo pulled up to the loading area as if he were about to drop someone off. My initial thought was, "why is a limo dropping someone off to get on MARTA?" Well, no one exited the vehicle so then I thought maybe he was picking someone up. Again, why would someone riding MARTA be getting into a limo to be driven on to their final destination? A taxi, yes, but a limo? No one came though and as we were boarding our shuttle I noticed the limo had pulled out of the station and was looping back around to the front loading area again. Really weird, I thought.

I joked with our shuttle driver that at first we all thought he had come to pick us up in that limo. He laughed and said "Nope, not today." Thirteeen of us then piled into the stinky, white cargo van to head to work. No limo for us! A girl can dream, can't she?

I finally arrived at work at 7:40 a.m. - almost 40 minutes later than normal. All because I missed my bus and had to wait 15 minutes on the next one. Go figure.