Good Friday, a day when the Romans were able to carry out the most high profile execution in human history. Moving all the way from arrest through trial, sentencing, crucifixion, death and burial in a single 24 hour period. And yet, 2,000 years on, on the right side of the dark ages and then some, on this Good Friday the W5 bus and I were like a boy and girl at a disco, unable to cross to the opposite side and get off with each other.

The W5

I always get antsy when I have to catch a bus with a letter in the number. It’s experience as well as the Excelsior in me (I shudder at the number of formulas and dependent pivot tables, sumifs, and box plots at Arriva HQ that must be crippled by that single non-numerical cell).

These buses are usually prestige-bereft single-deckers so can’t attract the best drivers, are advertised as being every 20 minutes but actually come every 35 so you can’t predict their hourly movements, and are always on the other side of the road to where I am. The last part is obviously my fault, but I make that mistake because I get them infrequently because of the first two points, so it is kind of their fault too.

The other thing that irks me about the W5 is it’s supposedly one of those super-convenient hail and ride buses. Except the W5 is only hail and ride for half its route, and for that half it only stops at secret unmarked stops like post boxes. It gives the feel of consumer friendly spontaneity, but without any spontaneity or consumer friendliness.

I made my way to my closest W5 stop, ready to go to my sister’s with a precious cargo of a single cream egg. One can check google maps or the Bus London app if one would like a misplaced sense of confidence about what time the red ant will come and ruin your picnic. On this day, both sources told me I needed to wait 4 minutes. As both Madonna and Mark Owen will tell you, 4 minutes is a brilliant time. Any longer and you have to wait longer, any shorter and you worry it was ahead of schedule and you already missed it.

I passed the 4 minutes by studying the little sign on the main sign that says if you text the number on it it will tell you the status of buses coming to the stop. I didn’t text it this time, but I did once. On that occasion I immediately got a text back saying the service wasn’t working. Still, in the tenth of a second between those two texts, I got another one from my dad asking why I wasn’t using WhatsApp or iMessage as actual texts cost him 20p.

My phone contract

At 31, my dad still has custody of my phone contract. Don’t worry, it’s not generosity. He has a disgustingly good deal with Sky where he pays an inflation-locked £8 a month for unlimited everything (except texts) for a family of four, and it’s one of those deals where the less people you have, the more expensive it gets.
He got it when they drilled a hole in his wall to install a new Sky box, after they said they wouldn’t need to. I know for a fact he’d have watched them like a hawk doing the work. So like a footballer diving to win a penalty, he deliberately feigned ignorance as an extremely loud drill blasted paint and plaster all over the carpet. I can picture him suppressing a smile, knowing he’d soon seek compensation and convert a hole in a wall into minutes and gigabytes.
I’m sure the reason he doesn’t charge the rest of the family £2 each is because he still enjoys chastising us for any additional costs, just like he did when I was 11 and lost my first phone swinging on promenade rails in the Costa del Sol.

I didn’t text either of them back.

After 40 minutes, the W5 still hadn’t arrived. Two should have in that time, an inverted “like buses” moment. My intended target rang me to ask where I was. I vented. As I did, she silently checked Google maps and saw a yellow exclamation mark. She informed me the W5 was not stopping where I was during Easter and was taking a completely different route.

I gulped, “Oh”.

I’m too scared to ask myself how long I would have stayed at that bus stop if she hadn’t rung. Especially as I have form.
In college, the teacher once said we can either do the question ourselves, or follow along on the projector as he does it. I was the only one to opt for the latter. I bedded in and prepared to have a guilt free zone out. Even in a semi-coma, I felt I was learning. Making steady, if unspectacular, progress. Unfortunately, there was a smart girl across the aisle who finished fast, looked over and quickly realised the teacher had done that thing where they freeze the projector so they can look at holidays. She alerted him and the class that I’d been watching a blank screen for ten minutes with a laughter that still rings in my ears.
I vividly remember the number of the classroom had a letter in it. 

I walked down the road to a stop the modified W5 was going to. It was in eyeshot of the other stop and in the direction I’d been looking. I had seen W5’s heading there but they were going the wrong way so I didn’t think anything was amiss. If anything, it only gave me more confidence, it showed they were running and would soon be coming back round towards me.

The new stop had an electronic board. It had a W5 and the destination I needed arriving in 4 minutes, perfect. However, within 30 seconds a W5 arrived with the correct destination, but on the other side of the road! I pegged it over without even a cursory glance left or right.
I leapt on just behind a lady, who clearly didn’t have either maps or bus London on her phone, and watched her flash her pensioner pass at the driver and beam, “Perfect timing”. My taxes were subsidising her travel, yet still she mocked me.
She turned around to pet the dog she heard growling behind her. Her eyes weren’t able to adjust in time, nor was I able to stop growling, and, on this Good Friday, my furrowed face was blessed by the wrinkled palm of forgiveness.