A Seattle Snow

It doesn't snow often in Seattle, so when it does, the city is in a state of pandemonium. Due to the snow advisory for Seattle on Monday, November 27, I decided to skip class for the evening and head home after work instead. I went to my bus stop at 4:45pm, where the bus shelter was crowded with people anxious to get home, as is usual around rush hour. People were making small talk, commenting on the cold weather and the recent snow flurries. Overhead, the sky was hidden behind deep grey-blue clouds, ominous. Roughly five minutes before the bus came, the clouds unleashed their fury on Seattle. It wasn't snow, and it wasn't hail, but rather a mix between the two resulting in tiny styrofoam-like balls bouncing off the sidewalk, umbrellas, people. It came straight down, for there wasn't much wind. It covered the ground with white in a matter of minutes. Then our bus came. "Don't bother showing your bus passes, just get on the bus!" shouted the bus driver, a frank and jovial black woman with a look of rushed anxiety on her face. "If you're standing up, hold on tight!"

Less than a mile out from the bus stop is a steep hill the bus must descend in order to reach its next destination. As we peered over the edge, the driver again warned those standing to brace themselves. We began our descent, and the driver put the brakes on, slowly. And we continued sliding down the hill, slowly, brakes and all. The man sitting next to me and I looked at each other, amused and quizzical, wondering where we might end up. Our driver honked the horn in warning for the cars ahead of us. The wheels turned to the right, where we hit the curb and stopped. Thankfully, there is a bit of level ground in the middle of the hill, which became our ending point. "For those who would like to get off the bus, now might be a good time." People started heading out the door, myself included. As I got up from my seat, I recognized a friend who regularly rides the same route as me, Kai. "Kai! Isn't this crazy?" He smiled in agreement, and with his Chinese accent replied "Yeah. Now what do we do?" I said I was getting off; there was no way the bus would make it down the hill and still be able to stop at the major intersection at the very bottom. So we got off, and our journey continued.

Kai and I trekked down the remainder of the hill, walking about a mile to the next bus stop. We talked, and waited, considering our various options. We were near a large shopping center--perhaps I could do some Christmas shopping as I waited for another bus? But then I realized that the sooner I catch a bus, probably the better, though 'sooner' was still nowhere in sight. The cars on the street were crawling at a snail's pace, and no buses were in the race. Most of the buses we needed to catch would have to descend the very hill from which we just came. So Kai and I waited patiently together.

Then the whirlwind of chaos brought a spirited and delightful girl into our path. She was friendly and talkative, so we soon learned that she was trying to catch the same bus as the two of us. She also informed us that bus routes can change during adverse weather conditions. Pulling out her handy bus schedule, she showed us the phone numbers to call for information during times such as this. So I called the first number using my cell phone, and got a busy signal, not surprisingly. I then called the other number listed, getting yet another busy signal. On to Plan B (though we never really had one to begin with).

We figured the alternate bus route would still end up at the place we currently were waiting, so we decided to stay put, except now it was Kai, me, and this new girl, whose name I had yet to realize. By this point, we had been waiting for over thirty minutes, with not one bus in sight, except for one or two coming from the opposite direction. The cars were still inching along, with most of them occupied by just one individual. The new girl thought it might be possible to hitch-hike, since people tend to let down their defenses in situations of communal confusion. But she needed some support, someone with whom to stick out a thumb. I thought, "It might be kind of fun, and I too would only do it if someone else were in it with me. Why not?" So I offered my thumb. And there we were, the new girl and I, novice hitch hikers thumbing the cars as they crawled on to their destinations. We got a few looks and laughs, but no stops. Then, lo and behold, we saw the lights of a bus heading our way. God must have been laughing at us, thinking, "What in the world are you two girls up to? Put your thumbs away, here's your bus!" And it was our bus, the 372. Hallelujah!

All of the refugees still waiting got on the bus, including the three of us. Kai got separated from us at this point, so it was the new girl and me. After our collective hitch hike attempt, I decided it was time to find out her name. Kara. We began talking, about anything and everything, from our occupations to our spiritual struggles. It was an instant friendship, created especially for us by God. We had a lot to talk about, and plenty of time, since the world had momentarily slowed down. My usual commute, under usual circumstances, takes about an hour; within an hour under the current circumstances, I wasn't even halfway home. But no matter--Kara and I were occupied.

As the evening progressed--for it was about seven o'clock by this time--Kara and I were only slightly aware of the bus' whereabouts. I did notice, however, when we stopped inches away from a parked semi truck, with the driver trying to fix something on the side of his truck facing the bus, putting him in between the two massive vehicles. The bus, which has two sections divided by an accordion-esque structure, was parallel with the semi truck. When we started to accelerate, the back end of the bus moved toward the truck, and hit it. Thankfully, the man got out safely. He and the bus driver talked for a few minutes, exchanging information. Most people on the bus were worried we would need to evacuate. Instead, the bus driver asked several people to get out and push the back end of the bus away from the truck so we could be on our way. And with the icy road conditions, it worked. We continued the long road home.

At one of the bus stops along the way, an old friend of Kara's from high school joined the 372 bus community. Her name was Nicole, and she had her own story as to how she had arrived on this particular bus, but we won't get too much into that. Let's suffice it to say that her car was stranded at the bottom a hill somewhere in Seattle. Nicole had no idea how she was to get home. The bus went as far as Woodinville, my stop, and no farther. Nicole needed to go just a bit beyond that, so I offered to take her as far as my 1990 Honda Civic could, barring any hills. She said that would work, and she would walk up the hill leading to her mother's house.

The bus finally arrived at Kara's stop, where she readily got off. Nicole and I still had an hour's commute ahead of us. It was relatively uneventful, and I was growing more and more tired by the minute. At around 9:15pm, the bus pulled into the Woodinville stop, where my car was waiting for us under three inches of snow (that's right, only three inches). I brushed it off and started the car. After a few minutes of warming up, I drove Nicole to the bottom of the hill leading her homeward, and dropped her off. Finally, I made my way home sweet home, where Scott welcomed me with a warm hug and kiss. And then I used the restroom.