May 15 2016
‘Is there ere a sign of one…’
‘Sure there I was standing on the corner of Fassaugh Avenue and Carnlough Road with one eye watching for the 22 and the other watching for the 22A when a woman says to me ‘Is there any sign of a bus love’? ‘No…’ says I to her. ‘…I’m standing here for the last twenty minutes’. ‘Ah God love you, are you freezing or what’, says she. I decided to take a chance on the 22 and strolled down Carnlough Roa…d to the bus stop. There must have been at least a hundred people waiting for the bus to town. The man dragging on a Woodbine asked me if the bus was coming and when I told him no he said ‘They’re up at that terminus playing cards you know’. Well that opened up the floodgates for everyone else to jump on the bandwagon. ‘I know…’ says one woman ‘…and they always come in twos and threes’. And then up pops a little voice from about halfway down the queue, ‘They should bring back the army trucks, they were never late’. ‘Ah will you go away out of that Misses…’ says someone from behind her ‘…sure they’re all out in the Congo’. ‘And what about the Parish Priest at Mass yesterday, Jaysus I thought he’d never finish’. ‘Don’t talk to me about him…’ says the woman with the red scarf on her head ‘…sure he never shuts up. I never see him getting on the bus’. And suddenly there it is, big, bright and green, the 22a. A chorus swells from the queue ‘Well about bloody time too’. Shopping bags at the ready, cigarette butts thrown on the ground and money rattling in pockets. ‘Here we go so’ say a lone voice from the back somewhere as everyone surges forward. The 22a came trundling down the road but didn’t appear to be slowing down. Swoosh…now you see it, now you don’t. With mouths dropping open in disbelief the crowd at the bus stop could only watch in horror as the bus sped past. The bus conductor was standing on the platform waving to them ‘Sorry, we’re all full up’ he shouted back at them. After about ten minutes of giving out and complaining everyone settled back as they were before the bus arrived on the scene when someone ups and says ‘Sure what’s new’?…