~Monday~ At one stop this morning, an NC State student got on the bus and just flashed his Campus Card for his fare as he walked past the driver and took a seat. The bus driver called out, “NC State guy,” and motioned him back up to the front. He pointed him to the sign that said that Campus Cards are no longer valid to ride the bus, instructing him to get a “Go Pass” for his next ride. When he walked back by me, I flashed my card at him and said, “You get one of these at the Transportation Office.”
The next lady who got on had trouble getting her coins into the fare machine. She had to drop a couple of them in twice, after retrieving them from the coin exchange slot. Finally, a ticket popped up indicating she’d put in enough, she grabbed it and took her seat. A few seconds later, another ticket popped up. “Ma’am? Ma’am?” the bus driver said looking in the rear view mirror trying to get her attention.
It should be noted that in both of these instances (with the NC State student and with this lady), the bus driver was looking in the mirror toward the back of the bus while driving forward. But I digress from the subject at hand to that of my own safety and well-being. How selfish of me.
Anyhow, when the driver finally got the lady’s attention, he said, “Ma’am, you overpaid,” and he held up the ticket. She came forward to get it, and as he handed it to her he said, “A nickel.” I guess that meant that that card had a nickel’s worth of fare on it for her.
There was a key ring hanging off the dashboard of the bus that reminded me of a set of jail keys. And whenever I see anything that resembles jail keys, I always think about this scene from Pirates of the Caribbean at DisneyWorld:
The lady sitting to the right of me had a copy of this with her:
Work was uneventful today. I had no meetings, which was a blessing.
At lunch time, I brought a piece of misrouted mail to the post office. It was addressed to 4325 Mail Service Center (which is my street number, but not my street name), and the zip code is mine. I guess that’s why it came to me. I looked up the business it was going to, and found its correct address: 4325 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699.
This is the second piece of misrouted mail (albeit the other one was a UPS package) I’ve received in as many weeks. The UPS package was addressed to a name I’ve never heard of, although the address was mine. Fortunately, I caught the UPS guy before he drove away and he took it back, so I didn’t have to deal with it any further.
As I mentioned a little while back here, I’ve set a Google Alert on my name. For the most part, it’s the same John Martins showing up in the report, with the most prolific one being a sportscaster in the UK.
You may remember that one time one of my namesakes was murdered being a good Samaritan at a convenience store up in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Today’s report contained these two eye-catching headlines and teasers, one about another dead John Martin:
Man killed while building tree house – WBTV 3 News, Weather …
The body of 32-year-old John Martin was found in the burned out tree house. Neighbors tell WBTV that Martin was building the tree house for a daughter in which he recently learned he has who lives in Florida. …
stuff white people do: have an aversion to non-white names
By macon d
The researchers then discovered that “those with an English name like Jill Wilson and John Martin received 40 percent more interview callbacks than the identical resumés with names like Sana Khan or Lei Li.” …
We had our September Manbites Dog Theater Board of Directors Meeting tonight, and an hour into the meeting we finally had a quorum. Michael, Ed, and I started at 6:00, the scheduled start time. Edie arrived at 6:25 thinking we started at 6:30, and Alice arrived right at 7:00 thinking we started at 7:00. 🙂 The meeting was scheduled from 6:00-7:30.
I stopped at the K-Mart Pharmacy on the way home to pick up a prescription refill, and then at the grocery store to pick up something for our department meeting in the morning.
I was going to get right on the minutes from tonight’s board meeting when I got home, but I just wasn’t up for it. Sometimes, you just have to relax.