Am I Too Hard On Myself? I Don’t Think So.

Today I took a Jefferson Lines bus home for fall break. It’s my second time on the Jefferson Lines, but this time instead of booking a bus leaving from Campus, I booked one that would board at the bus station downtown. It showed me no option for a bus leaving from campus, so I booked the option I saw. My logical reaction was to go to Minneapolis when I got off work at 12:30, because I would prefer to be in the area and just work on my writing at a coffee shop nearby while I wait. No normal person does that for a 5:20 bus ride, by the way. I’m just now realizing that might have been an odd thing to do. So right after work I raced back to my apartment to grab my bag and ran back to campus to get on the 12:22 bus heading downtown. The second I left my apartment it started pouring down rain, so I had to sort of waddle with the umbrella, my giant water bottle, and the awkwardly heavy bag which I didn’t want to get wet. Due to my lack of upper body strength, this was quite difficult. But I made it onto the bus, partially soaked but no worse for wear. The bus driver then decided to have a conversation with me about student loans, despite me being in the back of the bus.

“You’re a college student, huh? You got a lot of student loans?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, do you have a lot of student loans?!”

“Oh. Yes, they’re lots of fun.”

“What?!”

“They’re lots of fun!!!”

“You must have misunderstood me. I asked about your student loans!”

“What did you say?!”

So then we arrived downtown, where it was still pouring down rain, and I ran for a building that Google Maps told me would have a Subway. You know those weird in-between buildings that have a bank on one floor and the second floor is just for a bunch of restaurants that are always closed, and there’s usually a Subway, a mediocre Italian place, and a convenience store? They’re supposed to be for people in offices to get lunch in, but they always seem to dislike the food they’re eating, or the person they’re eating it with. And the people that walk by you are either uptight men in suits that kind of glare at you, other people who kind of wandered into the building accidentally, and at least one person talking loudly on the phone about someone that annoys them. That’s why you have to be careful in those buildings. If you can’t see the loud phone person, chances are you’re the loud phone person. 

I sat down at a bank of tables to eat my overpriced mediocre pasta(Line was too long at Subway), and planned to stay the next few hours, but that area of the building was closing and I got kicked out. So I set out on an adventure we shall call The Search For Somewhere John Can Sit And Do Nothing For Three Hours Because He Decided To Go Downtown Way Too Early. I entered the SkyWalk and saw a sign that said the library was up ahead. I thought “Oh cool, the library’s next door. I’ll go there.” Ten minutes later, I had followed seven different LIBRARY UP AHEAD signs through four different buildings, one which had a wooden bridge over a wishing well that smelled like chlorine. Another ten minutes went by, and I reached the last sign, which was behind a locked gate. But the library was across the street, and, according to Google Maps, was supposed to be five minutes away from where I was. I think the SkyWalks brought me to another dimension. 

I stayed at the library for an hour or two, unable to write, until I saw it had stopped raining and decided to wander towards the bus station. I was almost there when I saw a Starbucks right next to the building I had been in. For the fourth time today I thought, “That’s slightly irritating, but there’s no reason to get mad. Just laugh at yourself.” I sat at Starbucks for half an hour and fell down a weird YouTube hole of watching videos that weren’t fully committed to saying that Ellen DeGeneres sucks, but it was also confusing because the titles were very clickbaity.

I finally arrived at the Jefferson Lines bus depot, where a woman spent ten minutes telling me about how the bus driver that brought her here was staying at a Motel nearby and she kept running into him and it was really awkward. Around 5:20, I boarded the bus along with an older gentleman who had a very… interesting smell about him. I was happy, because I had made several weird decisions throughout the day, and missed some observations entirely that really could have helped me, but I was on the bus, and it really didn’t matter. The bus then drove up the hill to campus so the rest of the passengers could board, thus negating every decision I had made today.

I am writing this while on the bus. I know none of that is that big a deal, but I’m human. I like to beat myself up when I make mistakes. I mean, I don’t like to, but it happens. You know? I’m not a huge fan of buses in general, I don’t feel comfortable when I’m on them. So the fact that literally every step of my day could have been avoided if I had paid attention to the website more as I was booking is slightly frustrating. I don’t know. I’m not posting this for a few days, maybe I’ll feel less stupid about it then. 

Update, Day Of: I’m still an idiot.