Never take the bus marked "Local Route"

What an adventure I've had today in the backwoods of Pleasant Valley suburbia!

You see, dear friends, this Pleasant Valleyer is usually an 'express-bus-only' kind of cat, but as I waited patiently at my friendly neighbourhood bus stop for the usual 'quick-and-easy' Bus 70 Express Nepean South, I thought to myself, maybe there's another way. Just as this thought had finished percolating to a modest boil the "170" bus pulled up - and I thought, how much of a difference can one more digit make?

Umm...a big one.

I blithely flashed my pass and hopped aboard the 170 'Local Route' Nepean South, only to be treated to an experience that might rival the last great arctic expedition: "Day 53, no closer to the end of my journey, water is low and food rations are at a premium. Elderly lady in the reserved seating is eyeing me like a cut of fresh meat, cannibalism can't be too far off..."

Yup, I zig-zagged in and out of the far-west suburbs as the bus journeyed on a route that ran like a threading needle, back and forth and around and down and past just about every house in the neighbourhood. I could have made some extra scratch delivering newspapers had I known this was the deal with the good 'ol 170 'Local Route' Nepean South. You have to understand, my usual, darling, wonderful and almost Germanically efficient "70 Express Nepean South" is a concorde as compared with the 170 'Local Route' Nepean South twin-prop. I'm usually door-to-door-downtown-to-Greenbelt in 45 minutes, whereas today, my friends, it took over 90 minutes before I even stepped off my last bus.

Ah well, on the plus side it's true that I hadn't seen the new stretches of identical suburban housing that had appeared since last I called Pleasant Valley my home, nor the countless strip malls and big box stores that now cut through the once-sylvan forests of west-end Pleasant Valley. Delirious from my unending travels I almost found the monotony beautiful, you know, the way the Walmart catches the light of the setting sun, or the sublime dance of the construction trucks across the rich brown earth of a recent clear-cut. I'll stop myself before I start to cry...

So home I am, and after a hearty meal, some rehydration and a little time to think about my journey I feel a little wiser, and a little stronger, and a little less prone to idiotic experiments like the one I conducted today by choosing "Local Route" over "Express." One more digit DOES make a difference...