Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Do you go to C-O-U-R-T-I-C-E?

Lady holding a piece of paper gets on bus last night. Spells out Courtice to the driver. Driver says, "Yes, I go to Courtice. I believe I did change the sign on my bus."

Lady gets off the bus to look at sign, patiently waiting for it to cycle through its route destinations to confirm that the driver is correct.

She gets back on.

"How do you pronounce that again?" She asks the driver.

"Curtis".

She repeats it. Looking perplexed, she says, "That's not how my lawyer pronounced it."

Driver says nothing. Good move, dude. This lady looks like the kind of person who has wikipedia on speed dial. The kind of person who makes playing Scrabble with akin to a root canal.

She settles in her seat and starts to debate aloud the pronunciation of "Courtice" with the driver who, judging by his body language, could clearly not give a crap.

I couldn't help myself. I tell her everyone calls it "Curtis", but having met a member of the Courtice family, I tell her how it's actually pronounced, "Kor-tess".

She says, "Well, bully for you, then." And gets all huffy and puffy.

What do you say to such butt hurt? What did she expect? That no one would actually give her an answer? And as it happens, she's getting off at my stop. In a town she's never been to.

I start to walk away before she calls out after me to help her figure out which way she needs to walk to get to her destination. Really?

"Do you not have a map?"

"I asked the driver where Baseline Road was and he said he didn't know," she says. "Not really helpful if you ask me."

I wasn't aware a criteria of a GO bus operator's job was to be able to navigate Ontario towns and cities - how about you?

I tell her she has about a 5 km walk south. Then I realize where she's going. You'd think she'd plan better. And fire her lawyer.

9 comments:

  1. Wait...where was she going?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Self-store place. ALL THE WAY DOWN NEAR THE HIGHWAY.
    Bus was a bad idea. Cab. Definitely need a cab.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Must be part of this story I've misunderstood...not sure why she'd need a lawyer to navigate her to a storage facility in a town she'd never been to

    ReplyDelete
  4. Me neither... estate matter?
    Sorry for not indicating where she needed to end up.

    ReplyDelete
  5. That would be my guess.

    But what gets me is who goes someplace new without consulting a map at any given point. I doubt the lawyer said: take train to Oshawa and get on Bus.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I'm thinking she normally get's chauffeured around... (Maybe her account just got frozen in this Panama tax shelter kerfuffle)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice! (both the Panama reference and the use of "kerfuffle")

      Delete
  7. Who GOes some place new without consulting a map, Squiggles? Tourists who ride Route 12 to Niagara Falls — that's who! It never fails. The bus stops at Hwy 420 & Stanley Ave and passengers will approach the driver and ask sheepishly, "Now what?"

    ReplyDelete

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