My name is M&M and I am a public transport snob.
Today is not the first day that I have thought that trains are a better class of carrier than buses; it's more entrenched than that. Trains and railway stations are touched by romance; there is an air that you could be going absolutely anywhere and that anything could happen. Perhaps it's because I have watched Brief Encounter too many times, or perhaps it's because buses remind me of school.
As a teenager, I hated the 12-mile trip to school, espeically in the winter when I left in the dark and came home in the dark. I don't like the smell of buses and quite often, I don't like the smell of the people on the bus. When was a student, I travelled home for the Easter holidays on a National Express bus after recovering from a sickness bug. I ate a blue cheese sandwich and some cherries the night before; unfortunately, I was not as recovered as I had thought. I have never travelled by National Express since.
Buses do have some things going for them. As you crawl along at a speed slightly less than a slow walk, you can peer into people's windows and get a glimpse into their lives. Don't tell me you've never done it. However, the impotent road rage I experience sitting in a bus that's stuck in traffic is worse than when I'm behind the wheel of a car. I don't like feeling I'm not in control.
Note to self: get the Metro tomorrow at the Park and Ride.
