rod boyle

The Balfour Bus

Now, for the next month and hopefully not too much longer, the Balfour Bus.

The schedule - frequently disrupted, and so weekends - more or less - will be spent crashing on the couch in the restaurant.

But there's still the getting to & from the weekend in the restaurant, and as I don't care to hitchhike this will involve the bus. This bus, depending when you take it, can be an interesting bus. Today, the 2:45 back from Balfour to Nelson, 3 people, me and 2 women - 1 girl, one a rather ravaged and older cougar with lipstick on her teeth. The cougar is talking to the driver, a driver's quit, no notice, just walked off the bus...

...and cougar is wondering if it was the driver that dropped her off the other day, yesterday, her cat, I mean, it was in a carrier, but it got upset and had an accident....smelled the bus right up, wasn't her fault, couldn't help it, but he just stormed off the bus afterwards...

and they talk back and forth for a bit and it turns out it wasn't the same driver, not the one that quit, and then the conversation turns to the tweakers at the BBI...

...which has long been famous for providing minimal shelter to tweakers in return for their government cheques, and I'd been behind one, 9:30 this morning, in the bakery, buying up all the chocolate treats, clearly jonesing for a dose....

...back to the cat...

He's very loud (the driver) about talking about what an asshole that driver-quitter was. A lousy driver too...I'm at the very back of the bus, and I can hear everything.

We acquire more passengers, now - another reformed junkie, in his 30's I'm guessing, Cougar is unpacking and repacking her purse, taking everything out of it, then putting it back in, giving pep-talks to the reformed junkie, telling him he'll feel better soon, can't expect to be good after all he's done to himself...

I've talked with him, about him before, the other day he'd been in the library, in the aisles, talking loudly to himself, "Firing them all!! I'M FIRING THEM ALL!!!", I have no clue as to who was so deserving of his wrath, indeed I didn't picture him an employer, but....

Now more passengers, someone sits up next to the driver - and together, talking about that asshole who just up and quit 10 minutes before his shift...

You can tune your mind between every conversation on this bus, everyone knows everyone, and everyone talks loud enough that everyone can here, it's never a conversation with one person, it's with the entire bus...rural BC performance art...

Details: Category: Conversations; Created: 18 March 2023

Back at the Vancouver Restaurant...

I dreamed I was back at the restaurant I worked in last winter in Vancouver.

Except, of course, it was not, and I was given a couple of private rooms to set up - down below the restaurant in the Garden.

These rooms, they're filthy, dirty linen everywhere, water filled buckets, table unset, and I'm trying to begin...

A bunch of waitresses assisting me, bossy, telling me what to do, the place is a mess and I know I'm in a nightmare, I'm trying to set up the "Merchandise" stand with bars of soap, is dark outside, evening, the customers will be arriving soon and there is no chance that this restaurant will be anywhere set up to the standard it needs to be, and I wonder why I'm here, I was supposed to be going to another job appointment today...

...and then I woke up. I would class this as a nightmare. And, coincidentally, today I'm back to the 'ole DnD to clean the place up before opening tomorrow...