So for those of you who are still wondering – I know my aunt does! – we (those of us who applied for the America trip with school) received a letter from the guy chaperoning the trip, that said whether you had been accepted or not. I was not. But as a reassurance they told me that I would be the first they called in to go if some of the 7 or 8 people decided not to go after all. Of 8 people, I doubt anyone will do that, but at least I’m number one. It’s kind of a bummer though, cause I was just one person away from being accepted, right, but anyway. I can go on my own! : ) And I will. Some day. : P
So a couple of weeks ago I was on my way to work. I work as a cleaning lady once every three weeks at this office, and the time had come for me to clean the office yet again. School is off 01.55, I had managed to survive a whole school day without my phone. My bus leaves at 02.00. I rush out of the class room, through my stuff into the locker, somehow manage to waste a bunch of time and so I’m running – on icy ground – to catch my bus before it leaves. The constantly overcrowded bus. As I round the corner I can still see that my bus is parked right in its normal place and so I hurry inside and peep my fancy bus card I got from school because I live so far away. I manage to find an open seat next to a guy, politely ask if I can sit, and sink down into the not-so-comfortable bus seat, trying to make it look like I totally didn’t stress to get to the bus on time. At 02.05 the bus leaves. Which doesn’t make me wonder, because there are two busses that go to my work, one leaves at 02.00 and another one at 02.05 and I can never tell them apart. As we drive (and note that I have terrible, I mean terrible, sense of direction – I live in a teeny-weeny town and yet if you asked how to get to the movie theatre, honestly I couldn’t tell you) I notice that the buildings don’t look exactly the same as they used to do, but then again, I have terrible sense of direction and where we are, so maybe these buildings were always like that and I just never noticed. Then we get to the only intersection with traffic lights that we have in town and I recognize it and think “oh, that’s right, we always go through this intersection” and I stopped worrying. And I didn’t notice that we took the wrong turn. So after a while, about ten minutes or so, again I get the feeling of not remembering where this place is. There were a whole bunch of small private houses and some small shops here and there, and I couldn’t remember having ever seen them before. So I thought “maybe it’s taking a detour, and it will go back again soon, or on the way back to town” and so I don’t think anything more of it until we get to this “big” shopping center. (Mosseporten for those of you who know where that is). And I’m thinking “Shit.” I’m on the wrong bus. Mosseporten, that shopping center, is like, in totally the opposite direction of where those offices are. I’m on the wrong bus. I need to get off. I don’t have my phone. I need to get off in a place where someone else also gets off so I can ask to borrow their phone, and it has to be by a store or something so I can tell mum where I am. And I’m trying not to make it look like I’m completely lost, cause the guy next to me is like totally calm, and I’m freaking out inside. So the bus drives further and further until I am sure I have never been there before at all, and some people do get off here and there, but I swear, there were NO shops or grocery stores or ANYTHING around. Like nothing. There were barely even houses. So we drive, and we drive, and we drive, and I’m thinking “oh my gosh, mum’s gonna have to drive so far to get me” and I was already late for work. Big time. Not that they care, they’re only guys and they probably forgot I was coming that day anyway. So finally I spot the tiniest grocery store in human history, and it doesn’t even look like one because it’s located inside some really shabby, old building that looks like it used to be those really, really old-fashioned fire houses just without a garage. The only reason I know it’s a grocery store is because it has a big green flag outside of it that says “SPAR.” I think. Or something else. And luckily there is a girl who needs to get off there, so I hurry off the bus too. I almost run after the poor girl, and I politely say “Excuse me” and ask to borrow her phone because I had forgotten mine and was on the wrong bus. The girl, thankfully, and so nice of her, lets me borrow her phone, and I call my mum, who doesn’t pick up. And I call and I call, but all I hear is “beeeeeeeep………beeeeeeeep….” for like a minute until she finally picks up (she doesn’t have a voice mail so her phone just calls and calls forever). And I’m like “Hey, mum, it’s me.. so um.. I got on the wrong bus…. could you come get me?” and she asks me where I am and I say “um.. hang on” and I have to ask the girl where we are, cause I really had no idea, and she just laughs and says I’m in Våler, at Teksnes and I’m like ?! And I tell mum that, and that I’m by a SPAR shop, and there is a sign that says Nes, or Nos, or Nis, or something, I couldn’t see that far. And she’s like “well I don’t really know where that is” and I try to remember where the bus had been driving, and I tell her what I think I remember, but once we have hung up, mum will have the information she has, and that would be it. If she didn’t find me she wouldn’t be able to call me back, and I’d be lost forever. I was like freaking out, and I didn’t want the girl to leave, but I couldn’t tell her that, and I couldn’t let her see that I was freaking out. So I just stood there. In the cold. Making time pass by making patterns in the snow with my shoes. And I can’t even call anyone or text anyone to make time pass, I couldn’t even check what time it was because I don’t wear a wrist watch since I have my phone. And it feels like forever until I see mum’s car driving towards me, and as she pulls over to let me in she’s just laughing. So after that I didn’t really feel like working. I was tired and cold and frustrated with myself, and I just wanted to go home, but obviously, work needs to be done. So I show up, like milestones late, and I present my apologies to my boss who actually had forgotten that I was supposed to come. My boss seems like the most boring person at times. I text him to say I’ll be working today and he says “Ok.” back. To every text I send, I receive and “Ok.” back. I don’t think I can ever remember having received anything but “Ok.” from him, but once I told him what had happened, and where I had ended up, he laughed so hard I had to laugh too. And he just laughed, and he kept bugging me about it and asking questions, and laughing some more.
Looking back, it was pretty funny. But it was NOT at the time. And honestly, it wasn’t even my fault, because the bust I took stood in the exact place that my bus is supposed to be (at lease I think it stood there), and it left at the exact same time. And I was in a hurry. But I have learned my lesson. Always always look to see where the bus is going before peeping your card. Or ask the driver. Or both. So I tend to do both.
It’s actually quite amazing I haven’t gotten lost anytime before like that considering my sense of direction.
Have a nice weekend :)
Kittie's Blog 