Magic Bus

About a week ago Miss TeenE took the 274 bus that runs over the top of Regent's Park to a friend's house. She spent the afternoon hanging out, and of course it was dark when it was time to return home for dinner. She called to tell us when she was leaving, and we arranged for Hubster to go down to the bottom of St. John's Wood High Street to meet her as she got off the bus. It really is a very safe neighborhood, but there is a park and church burying ground that runs along the bottom of the "Hi Street", so it could be a bit threatening for a young teen.

We were all concentrating so much on her safety and executing the plan properly that we didn't realize she had absent-mindedly left her "Oyster Card" bus pass behind when she exited the bus. Several days later, when she was looking for it (a common occurence), I decided that it probably had gone on a little adventure further into bus 274 territory.

That Friday afternoon, the telephone rang. It was a man who said he had found "my" Oyster Card (I had placed one of my business cards in the little plastic pocket). He would be around that afternoon if I wanted to go to Islington to pick it up. What a nice person!! He said he knew he should have called Transport For London, but worried that they wouldn't ever get it to us. He had no way of knowing it was an "unregistered" card and that they wouldn't have been able to trace it any other way than by using the business card. The nice man gave me some rather vague directions as to what stop to get out at, and I said I'd call him when I got close, after I had made an important international phone call to Arizona.

At the appointed time, I reassessed the situation. It was pouring out. Really really pouring hard. For me to add that much emphasis you know that it wasn't a run-of-the-mill London rain. Also, my tummy, which had been upset a few days before, seemed to be threatening again. I called the nice man back to give him the news: it was just too wet to come out during Friday afternoon rush hour. I told him that he was a good person and that he should enjoy his extra bus rides. My faith in the innate goodness of (most) people was buoyed up by his enthusiastic response to his fifteen pounds worth of transportation.