Thursday, November 6, 2008

Taxi Driver

The mother’s SoundDock arrived safely last week and the adapter I had to buy for it came yesterday. YAY! I was worried that thing wouldn’t get here in time.

As it turns out, I needn’t have worried, now that I’m going to be here for a half-day tomorrow. *groans and mumbles*

Both are now wrapped and ready to be “stealthed” home. It’s very hard to stealth things home on the bus – especially with it stopping directly in front of the house. However, since I’m going grocery shopping, the car is waiting for me at the bus station. All I have to do is put it in the trunk and I can reclaim it later tonight while the mother is preoccupied with something.

Tonight I am taking S, who rides the bus with me, along to the grocery store. I had no idea that she didn’t have a car! (She sold her manual transmission car a year or two ago after a knee injury and subsequent surgery made it impossible to drive it. In light of the economy and considering that she works in a bank, she has put off buying another car. (Uh. Yeah. I can relate to that. Ladybird will have to keep on flying at least through Q1 of next year!)

She lives in an apartment – that I drive right past – about a mile or so from my house. The bus re-routing is a real hassle for her. When I drove one day last week, I gave her a lift home.

Instead of getting dropped off right across from her door, she now has to get a bus two blocks away that takes her to the main depot to get to the bus that goes to St. Louis. I felt bad about being so happy with the changes when I heard that.

She said she usually takes the bus to and from the grocery store. I’ve done that a time or two when we’ve had car trouble. It sucks. So, knowing that I was going to the grocery store tonight, I asked her earlier this week if she’d like to go, too. I think she was shocked. She said she had planned to go on Saturday, taking the bus there and a cab back, but that she’d be glad to go if I didn’t mind.

So, it’s nice to know that I can save her a little trouble. Kind of makes me feel better for being so happy about the route changes, not knowing that it would make it so much tougher for her. Besides, Ladybird is so huge, I've always felt this overwhelming need to pull to the curb and pick up passengers ...

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

How sweet of you. This is the kind of help within the communities we need more of!

MonkeyGirl said...

It is nice to be able to help out someone who needs a lift doesn't it? Pay it forward, MEF, pay it forward.

NV said...

V - It's not sweet -- it's just logical. I drive right by her house, I'm going to the store anyway ... :-)

MEF -- You're readin' my mind. When I was waiting for her to check out tonight, that's what I was thinking! It's not like it hasn't been done a thousand times for me.

Jayne said...

That's really nice of you to give her a ride. Too many times, the little things like that get overlooked.