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May 09, 2004

Tonight at 5PM I called the bus to reserve and pay for a seat on the last shuttle from Vancouver down to Seattle. They took my credit card information and gave me a confirmation to hand to the driver.

At 7:35pm, 5 minutes before the bus was to leave, I listened to the driver argue with two students and their mother. They didn't have proper student ID to board the bus on their pre-paid student fares. Despite showing birth certificates that said they were school aged, the driver was to have none of it.

I shuffled back on forth on my feet, then looked up to the sky waiting for the argument to pass, it did. Then it was my turn.

He asked for my last name.

"Beauchamp," I said. Neither of us could locate it on his printout of reservations.

"It's not there," he said in his very thick Indian accent. "That's a very bad sign."

"Try this confirmation number," I encouraged. He couldn't find that either.

"I made the reservation at 5PM" I said, "perhaps it didn't get printed in time."

"This," he said in a very serious tone, "is the latest data. The very latest data. This fax came to me at 6:30PM. I am the driver and this is the information I have which is the latest information. You are not on the current information."

"No, the fax came in earlier," I said, noting the 3:51 time stamp on the fax. "and I called after this time"

"No," he retorted, "the fax came in later. The time on it is wrong. Very, very wrong. Also, I called the office to get a final list of names. There is no you on the list. You are not there."

"How did I get this number then?" I asked, waiving my confirmation in front of him.

"I don't know. That I cannot figure it out. That is not my job."

"Can you call the office and check with them?" I said getting worried. This was the last bus heading back to Seattle and I needed to be on it.

"No, the office is closed. I cannot call. You are not on the list."

We both stood there for a moment at an impass until it struck me; my first reaction had been to get into an arguement that was strange and not going anywhere before actually asking for what I needed. So I thought for a moment and said "Well. Can I get on the bus?"

"Yes," he said, "You can get on the bus."

I found my seat near the front and rode his bus for the next two and a half hours without further incident.