Buh-bye or So Long and Thanks for all The Bubbles

Oh, I am so mad this morning I don't know what to throw first.

Ever since Hurricane Wilma, the Metromover has been operating in fits and starts. The service has been supplemented by buses, taking riders along the route, and dropping them off at or near the stations. I say at or near, because depending on your driver, they may cop an attitude and refuse to let you off, or not stop, or whatever. In any event, it takes a 7 minute train jaunt and turns it into a half-hour ordeal.

Except for this morning.
See, there are two stops where I can get off the Metrorail and pick up the Metromover: Brickell, which is my usual stop, and, although it takes longer, is more pleasant in that it's out in the sunshine and fresh air and I can stand up there on the platform and watch the sun dance off the turquoise* waters of Biscayne Bay.

Or I can get off at Government Center, and hop an inner loop shuttle past the courthouse and the college and end up at my same end point over on Biscayne Boulevard. I prefer not to, however, because it's a very busy stop, and there's lawyers and government workers and the connection is semi-contained.

Today, I hopped off at Brickell and I was Very Early for work. When I got downstairs, the Mover was barricaded off and we were told to take the shuttle bus. Well, crap. If there had been an announcement on the train (they are always announcing broken elevators) then I would have ridden on to Government Center, which is the next stop anyway.

Down to street level. I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more. I waited while no less (and no more) than THREE shuttles came for Brickell Key (the maids' shuttle, OK?). Finally, after more than half an hour's wait, a downtown shuttle came. Oh, yesh, the driver assured all of us steaming in line, this would take us to Biscayne. So I got on. And we drove and drove and drove and then I realised that the bus, it did NOT turn on my usual street. It kept going straight. And then it turned back and went to Government Center. It was now forty five minutes after I got off the train one stop south of Government Center. I could now take another shuttle bus or any of the downtown regular buses, or I could go upstairs and get on a MetroMover going on another loop, or I could walk to work.

Which is what I did. It took 15 minutes in 3" heels (on a platform wedge, by the way) over crumbling sidewalks, and I still got to the office more rapidly than the shuttle bus that was coming up behind me as I entered the building.

THE OTHER THING I'M PISSED ABOUT

The other thing I'm pissed about this morning is last night's ANTM (America's Next Top Model and what rock have you been living under not to know that?) elimination of Lisa which left that yellow-toothed, Dumbo-eared, skank Jayla around. Lisa could pose circles around that nasty ho even when drunk or hung over, and as for the rabbit-toothed, walking teen snotrag, Nicole: well, she can be sent home any second now, and I wouldn't be crying.

*If, by turquoise, you are thinking of the really dark, muddy greenish brownish stone with heavy dark spider webbing.