I’m a volunteer driver on a minibus a couple of times a month. It’s nothing onerous, just picking up a half-dozen passengers with mobility issues, dropping them in town at the shops, and then collecting them from the community pop-in centre for the return journey. It’s probably no more than an hour in total, unless something goes wrong, such as surprise roadworks that turn a two mile round trip into five. Even so, it’s all quite straightforward.
Then there are the mornings when I simply shouldn’t have got out of bed, because the Foul-Up Fairy is waiting outside the door to dog my steps.
The bus is grey, it seats twelve, and is really, really difficult to miss, so when I pulled into the small car-park, the lack of bus was obvious. Naturally, I went into reception, and asked, but no-one knew. A quick call to the caretaker revealed that it was in the rear car-park.
I collected the bag with the keys and log book; the caretaker turned up and showed me the way. All was well until we reached that other car-park. There it was, a grey minibus, just not the right grey minibus, not the one I was holding the bag for. Not that that mattered because as it turned out, there were no keys in the bag – the usual minibus was in the garage “in bits”.
The caretaker showed me to the office where they were able to confirm that I was authorised to drive the other bus, and then back to reception to collect the keys. I did have to promise not to scratch the new minibus. It had less than 1500 miles on the clock.
It also had an incomprehensible key and remote. By trial and error, I worked out how to get in, how to start the engine, and…. where’s the damned hand-brake? Not between the cab seats where I instinctively reached, because there was a middle seat. How about some handy handle on the dashboard? Or a magic button or… who puts a handbrake lever down there? To my right. Between the seat and the door. That would bug me for the rest of the morning.
At least now I was on the move and picking up my first passenger, when I found that opening the driver door with the engine running set off an alarm. Not so loud I couldn’t ignore it, but annoying. Then, whilst the side door slid open perfectly, it wouldn’t shut again. The usual bus just needs a bit of a tug to overcome a spring, but as it turned out, this one had a latch operated by the main external door latch. It did have a handy label – pull to open – but left out that crucial detail, pull to close. By this point I was no more than a quarter hour late on the pick-up schedule.
The next passenger was a mile and a half out of town, which went smoothly – I now knew how to open and close the side-door, and the driver’s door is open alarm was no more than irritating.
On the drive back for the next pick-up, an oncoming truck occupied rather more than half the road width. Naturally, I slowed and eased over towards the verge to give good clearance. I nearly crashed the thing as an aggressive and insistent alarm sounded from somewhere near the left-hand cab door. I was too busy trying not to panic to figure out what it was.
Pulling away from the traffic lights in town, another alarm sounded, a higher pitch and really, really annoying. How many different panic noises does this damn bus have? I ignored it all the way to the next pick-up, when it stopped. And then started again when I pulled away. I finally worked out that the handbrake lever was a tiny fraction off being fully released.
Positioning for a right turn, the aggressive alarm from the left side of the van sounded on the right. At least I was getting accustomed to the van screaming every time I did something it didn’t like, and I finally worked out what was going on. Facing down the approaching truck, the bus had decided that I was too close to the verge, and now I was too close to the white centre-line. I’ve driven with a nervous passenger before, but a nervous vehicle? I find myself imagining what would happen if a self-driving car developed panic attacks, got nervous at junctions, swerved away from oncoming cars.
Whatever. I hate this bus.
In spite of everything, I got my passengers to their destination, parked the bus, returned to my own familiar car and went to do my weekly shopping. That went well, apart from there being no milk, and then I got home…
After all the delays, and a couple of extra chores, I had fifteen minutes to unload my car, get the perishables into the fridge, slurp a cup of tea and get back out to collect first the minibus and then my passengers (and find somewhere to pick up milk). In that time, I lost my car keys. Yes, there was a spare set, but even so, barely five minutes left and the choice was between a cup of tea and hunting for keys.
Tea. Every time.
By the time I had got all my passengers home, to the accompaniment of an orchestra of alarms I am sure could be turned off if only I had the user guide, or a minibus psychological counsellor, the Foul-Up Fairy had one final strike for the day. When I went to pay for the milk, I idly checked my phone, just to find out how late I was running. Or I would have done, if only my phone were in my pocket. After backtracking, I drove back to where the minibus was parked – my phone was lodged between the seat and the seatbelt socket.
The Foul-Up Fairy was finally done with me – I know this because I got home, made lunch and found the car keys behind the kitchen door. I must have dropped them and unwittingly kicked them whilst putting things in the fridge. Or Piper the cat pounced on them and hid them for later – he does things like that, whether it be rabbits or pieces of coal. My fault or the cat? I’d call the odds on those about evens.
It was definitely a morning to have stayed in bed.
(Author’s note: I indulged in a little artistic licence with this account. When a day is going that badly, I do not exactly refer to it as the Foul-Up Fairy, but that’s close enough to the original.)
Mark-Huntley-James 