My momentous moment (a parody)

Thursday, November 15, 2018

While I knew the snow was destined to get bad, I still promised to go to the Board of Education meeting.

I'd been told something significant would transpire.

This was a rare a momentous occasion since generally so little took place at other times, counting flies on the window shades provided the only entertainment -- marginally interesting even if not on the agenda.

The meeting was to be held in a remote portion of the city at a high school so off the beaten track you might think the official felt ashamed of it, and really did not wish for anyone to attend even at the risk they might accomplish something.

But since I felt compelled to witness a meeting in which I might feel better entertained by those holding the meeting than by the flies, I decided to risk the venture and trek to the Boulevard for the bus  rather than to take the nearby train which would -- after a change to another train -- left me too many blocks downhill from the high school, a trek I had no desire to make despite the great appeal of the snow.

I assumed the risk and arrived in time at the bus stop to witness an old man entertaining himself with a shovel.

While his huffing and puffing was more interesting than watching flies, the chill and snowflakes spoiled the experience for me.

Yet less entertainingly was the wait for the bus.

I waited almost an hour for the bus to come. when one came it was going the other way, followed a moment later by another then after that, a third. I couldn’t for the life of me figure what caused to bunch up like that. For a moment I thought maybe a game of penuckle but when a fourth did not appear right away I dismissed the idea.  Nobody their right mind would play penuckle without a fourth,

When none returned in my direction in a reasonable amount of time, I suspected they were up to something nefarious and I took a puddle jumper instead.

Puddle jumpers are the worst sort of transport but better than walking miles in the snow.

While they have no heat and are as a rule overcrowded and uncomfortable, these came when others wasted time playing cards -- though the drivers even in the best of weather tended to weave sometimes even into on-coming traffic, a precarious adventure but one to raise doubts about a timely arrival since the trip might include a visit to an emergency room.
And since the weather was far less than optimal, fears of death filled the vehicle along with every other possible disease known to man, all of us shoulder to shoulder swaying like drunks along with the driver who may well have been drunk.

what may have saved us was the incredibly rapid speed of 3 to 5 miles per hour we travelled on account of some other vehicle’s reckless crash somewhere up the road, causing bumper to bumper back up in which we were stuck.

When I glanced behind, I could see the other three buses travelling at an equally reckless speed and when I looked closely, I thought I could see one of them shuffling cards.

This journey at breakneck speed risked my arriving too late to witness the monumental event.

For this reason, I abandoned the vehicle two blocks early an raced the vehicle to the door of the high school, losing to it by a whisker when I paused to tie my shoe laces.

Such a hair-raising adventure I knew might never let me later be satisfied with flies -- though I would then have taken to counting flies even then when my momentous moment slipped through my fingers at the sight of the sign on the door saying the meeting had been cancelled on account of snow.