Maybe I am not so lucky after all

As it turns out, I probably should not have boasted about my luck. I have learned my lesson and I am truly repentant. I will never do it again.

Monday morning when I was going to work, I decided to hop a bus as I was running late [euphemism for the fact that I was already twenty-minutes late and work is a twenty-five minute walk away]. Now, the fact is that I live in an extremely skinny neighbourhood that essentially consists of five long [verrrrrry long] streets with many many perpendicular side streets [all leading to the beach of course]. The buses run on two of the five major streets [one in either direction] and most run the length of each street before veering off on their separate courses. Work is approximately three kilometres from home in a straight line and whenever I catch a bus, either to work or home, I just catch whichever one comes along first and have never had any problems. Well ... of course, as luck would have it, yesterday's bus did not go in a straight line. Two blocks from home, it turned down a side street and made quite the detour to the mall. It then ended up looping back to where I initially picked it up and then headed towards work. Of course, by the time that I realised that the bus would no longer be faster than walking, it was too late to get off and catch a new one. So there I sat, watching the neighbourhood, as well as my initial stop, go by. And go by again. Needless to say, I was not very pleased with my choice of bus that morning.

Now, if that were the end of the story, it would be one thing. But, alas, it is not. At lunch, I had to run to the bank to withdraw some money. Since international bank cards are only accepted in a few select bank machines, withdrawing money in Brazil often means going a little bit out of one's way. As the closest bank with international capabilities is a twenty-minute walk away, I again decided to hop the bus as a Time Saving Measure. Of course, as luck [not!] would have it, I again caught the one bus that does not follow the standard route down the neighbourhood's main street. Again it veered off course to go the mall. By the time that I managed to convince the driver to let me off, I am not sure that any time had been saved. As you can imagine, I decided to walk back to the office rather than attempting any further bus travel that day. Otherwise, who knows where I would have ended up!