Home by the shortest route
Another Friday evening in the life of a post-clubbing lifestyle. With a full belly I settled back to technically assist in the legislative process (I run the videoconference unit once a month) and prove that working long days doesn’t really get me down. Of course, once the call for adjournment has been made and the circuits shut down, my homing instinct is as strong as any other pigeon. Out to the bus stop.
We’re in mid-snow season, but with no wind the evening was actually pleasant. I watched a fire truck leave the station for a quiet neighbourhood tour (no special effects) and waited for my appointed ride. My musical selection for the evening: Altan, with that wonderful fiddler Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh. We owe a debt to that most musical of villages, Gweedore.
My first bus dropped me in the bus hut at the university, where my pounding time on the glass walls may have resembled the sound of a bodhran, should anyone else be listening. Friday evenings on campus are quiet; the usual cast of thousands go elsewhere. Ergo, an easy rationalization for my next bus: empty but for me and the private chauffeur. My tax dollars on my side for a change.
The driver flashed the interior lights to catch my fiddle-fast attention, and we discussed the next move. Rather than spending time driving me up and down the side streets of a sleepy city, he offered to “cut to the chase”. Name a corner and that would be the destination. Offers like that aren’t the kind I take lightly, and we were homeward bound.
I made the trip from the campus to my corner in just over twenty minutes. That’s actually better than we’d have done in a private vehicle, given our left turns on red lights (even bus drivers have an outlaw spirit on a quiet Friday evening). He slowed, I stepped down and the day was done.
