You’re late for class. You live off campus so walking isn’t an option to get there on time. Luckily, a UMD bus runs directly from your apartment to Stamp. Great! You think back to when you first moved in to your new apartment and you remember thinking how exciting it would be that a bus would pick you up right outside your building so you would never have to walk to class again. The sound of thunder wakes you from your reverie and you remember that you need to catch the bus before it’s too late. You check NextBus on your phone and after waiting for the app to load you see that the bus is 15 minutes away. Between cracks of thunder you can hear your heart break when you realize you won’t be in class in time before your quiz until you look back at your phone only to notice that NextBus is just taking your location from the night before when you were coming back from a friend’s house.
Hope is still alive.
You adjust the app to track to your current location and you find out that the bus is only one minute away. Panic builds and you close your laptop from the night before and rush out of your front door with reckless abandon and run down to the bus stop. You arrive at the bus stop in the pouring rain and each drop on your head is a cold reminder that in your rush you forgot your umbrella. Oh well, at least the bus will be nice and warm. Speaking of the bus, where is it? Shouldn’t it be here by now? You look back at your phone to see that the bus is still one minute away. The little bus icon gives you some amount of comfort when you see it is just stopped at a nearby stoplight. As you stand in the rain you begin thinking about what your fellow students must think of you after they saw you run out into the rain wearing only a sweater that’s becoming wetter by the minute. Without a phone to look at to hide away, you face the awkwardness with pride and stare directly ahead while time goes by at an alarmingly slow rate.
Several minutes pass and still the bus remains ever at 1 minute away until you finally see a bright red beacon of hope turn the corner. Your heart skips a beat when you check the time and you know it’s going to be very close. You are one of the last to board out of the group that had accumulated at the stop but the first step is dry bliss. You stand packed against other passengers, secretly happy with the body heat accumulating and hoping it will mean less people will notice how wet your clothes are. The bus begins to drive away as you begin to review the material that will be on the quiz in your head. After traveling approximately 20 feet the bus comes to a jolting stop so that that one person who is running even more late than you are can get on between stops. Even though you are annoyed with the slight delay, you know you would have done the same thing if you were in their situation.
As the bus continues along through traffic you alternate between checking the time and thinking about what will be on the quiz today. By the time you convinced yourself that everything will be fine and you’ve accepted the fate of your quiz grade the bus arrives just outside your classroom with just a minute to spare. Taking into account that most people probably think you’re crazy anyway for running out of your apartment without an umbrella, you decide to push to the front of the group to get off of the bus first. You rush out of the doors back out into the pouring rain, run across the street and down the path to the front doors of the building. As you walk briskly through the hallways you pass other students and you check your phone one last time and find that you are right on time.
Practicing your casual “I-meant-to-get-here-right-on-time-and-I’m-not-freaking-out” face just before you enter, you walk into the classroom only to find that there is no one else there. Confused, you briefly consider that through all the rushing you somehow managed to go to the wrong classroom halfway through the semester. With doubts still going through your mind you decide to check your email in case you missed some kind of message. You open up your laptop to find that the latest message is from your professor saying that he will be out today and your quiz has been postponed until further notice. A mix of relief and regret wash over you and you suddenly start to feel much colder as you notice the rain on your sweater.
As you walk back through the halls you check NextBus to find out that the bus that took you to class has just left, but you decide to walk back to the bus stop anyway. The rain has picked up but you aren’t in a rush anymore so you walk back to the cover of the bus stop to wait for the next bus to come because even though sometimes the buses can give you some anxiety, you wouldn’t have it any other way.
