The Town Bus

People may think this is a post from 1955 or I am from Mozambique but I have an important announcement to make which is big news in the world of @blanchy. We have finally got a proper town bus in my home town in Ireland. Now this town bus has these things called bus stops and they do loops of the town and arrive every hour and are on time mostly. You can even download an app to see where the bus is located, buy tickets on the app and also check timetable. Now before you mock me, this is a revelation. My town has never had a bus service before so we are all looking at it like cavemen when they stumbled upon fire or even when the first kinky caveman decided to milk a cow.
So we were all excited to get the town bus up and running but nobody knew where the stops were going to be apart from the town politicians who were keeping the routes close to their chest. The route unveiling was a couple of weeks ago which made things even more exciting at chez blanchy. The national Transport for Ireland authority pulled up on the road beside my house and plonked a couple of bus stops 20 meters from my front door. The two smallies , the dog and myself peered out at the burly men making a bus stop for 3 and a half hours until my wife told us to stop staring and I was causing a scene. We were on a route. This is amazing.

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My house is far enough from the town to persuade me not to go in for a pint on most evenings and close enough to go in for a pint on most weekends. Taxis are all pretty non existent in the town. They are operating but you need a secret number or a funny handshake to summon the taximan. Their Taximans numbers get handed down by the elders and I have not been lucky enough to get one so on a usual night. Also the average taximan is paid in cash or blowjobs and I never carry any cash for the most part. With this in mind I bear the elements and wrap up for my 20 minute walk into town. I could turn up at the bar looking like a drowned rat or with my beautiful hair all tossed. If the temperature is 3 degrees, the real feel is around -35 degrees. Only the Scottish and Irish know of this weather. I remember bringing a couple of Slovaks over to train in my job a few years ago. They came from -24 degrees and told me it was much colder in Ireland at 2 degrees because the east wind would cut you in two. We all know there is no east wind in Slovakia so I understood them completely. Anyway I'm drifting I'm drifting. So I spend much of my time in the pub is summoning up the courage to walk back home again. When you set off for your journey of misery home after a few pints of Guinneas you curse the decision and say you will never go out again as it is too much hassle. BUT THIS ALLLL STOPPPPPSSSSS NOWWWWWWWWW!!!!!

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The routes came out the other day and people looked at it in awe like a magpie looks at a shiny ring. A couple of social media comments by the town's crustys & numpty trolls criticised the buses for "only stopping in some locations" to which the towns public replied "That's the point of buses." which got 1500 laugh emoji's including my one!" This of course did not apply to myself as I learned that 3 routes would stop outside my door giving me a choice of a bus every 30 minutes. Now the question was what bar will I go to? Discussions by all the dads across the town began on what was the handiest pub to get to via bus. Protractors and compasses were sold out as we plotted the shortest distance between bus stops and the local pub. I had done my study early and decided to trial my strategy last Friday night. To make me serious about my task I made sure I had an event lined up to give me the extra motivation to plot my journey to precision and this would be a sign of things to come if I was going to make a successful exhibition to this bar. Nobody thought of this bar. All the other dads were focusing too much on the town centre where I was gonna try something a bit different. A bar off the beaten track that had seen better days but would come good with some footfall. A large tele and a sporty clientele. The match was kicking off on Friday at 8pm. To avoid bedtime , I let it be known that it would be my first journey on the bus so I would have to leave early to make sure I didn't miss it.

7.30pm Run out of the house. Take 28 medium paces.
7.31pm Arrived at the bus stops (Kids upstairs looking down at me knocking at the window which was slightly embarrassing). Bus was due at 7.35pm
7.35pm Activate my ticket (that I purchased earlier via the app)
7.36pm Sat on the bus. Indian music was playing. Some lad doing a solo on a sitar. The crustys were grumbling again on Facebook about not employing local Irish drivers but a comment was then made that they were too off their heads on drugs to drive a town bus. Anyway I liked the music. Bit mysterious.
It was dark and bus was weird translucent blue colour. I was excited and took a photo of myself on the bus. Not to attract attention for being a dull bastard I faced the camera down at my foot which was not as obviously but did what I wanted to do. Record my first journey on the bus. There was another dad on the bus and he asked me if we press the button if we want to get off at the next stop.
"That's what the city folk do so I presume so" I answered.
A bead of sweat appeared over his brow and he went for it
"Beeeeeepppp"
"A light appeared to signify the button push and everyone breathed a sign of relief."
"Jesus this is brilliant" said the excited man.

Now that the other guy did the hard yards for me, I reached for the buzzer to signify I wanted to get off at the next stop but my stop was two stops away so I couldn't prematurely ejaculate with an early press of the button.

"Stay calm blanchy stay calm."
[Pressed button]
"Too soon" I thought , the doors were bearly closed from the current stop so the bus driver asked me abruptly if it was this one or the next one.

"The next one" I replied embarrassingly.
"So close, so so close to a perfect trip."
"I'm not gonna leave this upset me. I am not gonna let this ruin my bus self confidence. It could have happened to anyone."

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7.38 Stop one. This is actually really happening.
7.45 Bus arrives at destination. Pub 16 medium paces away.
7.46 Arrive in pub with a really big smile on my face about what had just happened. It had taken me 42 medium paces to get from my front door to the pub on other side of town off beaten track. This pub would normally take me 45 minutes to get to by foot.
7.47 Barman asked me what was so funny. I took him the story about the new bus and he rolled his eyes and told me I wasn't getting any at home. I agreed with him and took my drink down to the bench. Another 4 paces. So all in all house to bar stool 46 paces which is a revelation. I text a dad who lived near me. He said he did front door to his local in 75 paces so I was in the lead I imagine but I am hearing lately there is a pub on the route that is only 8 paces from bus stop. It's a shithole but has since grown in popularity.
9:58pm Spurs match finishes. Swamp pint.
10.02pm Back at Bus stop.
10:04pm Bus Arrived
10.10pm Back home putting on the kettle watching Yellowstone.

As I put the key in the door after my round trip my whole world opened like I was Christopher Columbus. This is the beginning of the rest of my life I announced. No more blow jobs, I mean taxis!

I told my wife all about the bus and how many paces I took and she just turned around and went to sleep. I actually made out that it takes more paces to get to my shed than it does to get to the pub that's a couple of kms away. I started thinking of all the other places I could get to with minimum paces. I heard of a guy that worked in a pub and lived over it, there was a restaurant next door and a shop at the other side of it. There was talks that on his recent Google maps summary he did not move outside of those 4 places for a month. This guy had life completed and this was my ultimate target in life so the town bus has gone along way for me and many others to achieve this goal of being lazy bastards.