Sir, in the "real" world...that's called a hostage situation

I love people who are annoying. They are awesome.

Today, a man on my commute tried to save the world from late buses...and in the process created a rather awkward environment, which made this all even more awesome to enjoy before a long day at work.

Here is what happened:

We had arrived at the Metrolink station down in Burbank around 6:55 a.m. and were waiting for our "Beeline" Burbank bus.

A note about The "Beeline." Yes, this is the actually name of the Burbank metrolink city bus system. Their slogan is "getting you where you need to 'bee'." Their maintenance crew must take the "bee" part very seriously, because you literally can hear the "buzz" of these city buses from about a block away. They seriously buzz and vibrate like a rather tired, old drone bee trying to make his last haggardly flight back to the hive.

Apparently the bus time schedule had been changed, but only by a couple minutes. A normal, mentally-stable, sensible person would not have their whole world rocked by a five-minute late bus.

Fortunately for my entertainment, the public transportation system is populated by those who do not possess those qualities.

About three minutes after the bus was supposed to arrive, one of the middle-aged, slightly overweight, probably divorced men(because I doubt any woman could put up with this guy...as you will soon see for yourself) began to pace with increasing intensity. He began to rant about why do they always change the schedule, and "Dave" (apparently a regular "Beeline" bus driver that this guy knew) would never do this to him!!!!!

Four minutes into this very horrifying injustice of the entire incapable and inept public transportation system and greedy-capitalistic-corporate-monsters-who-were-going-to-make-him-ten-minutes-late-to-work, another Beeline bus arrives. Bad Situation adverted. This man (shall we call him "Bob"?) cooled down until we realized it wasn't "our" Beeline. It was for a different route. But don't worry, the woman driver assured us...our "Beeline" was on the way.

Well that wasn't good enough for Bob. He need to go to work NOW. The woman driving the "wrong route Beeline" was trying to reassure Bob that she was sure that our bus would be there soon enough.

Nope. Bob wanted her to take him to work. Right. Now. He then announced to the rest of us commuters that we could board this Beeline and that this woman would switch her route just for us and she would personally drive each and every one of us to our work.

Bob suddenly grew very knowledgeable about the management structure of the Beeline bus system and informed the driver that she could just switch her route. "It's okay," he said rather passionately (this may be the most exciting thing that has happened all week for this poor guy.) "I talked to your dispatcher before. You can just change your route."

"Your boss won't mind. I will personally talk to the dispatcher myself!!!" He declared proudly- more for the benefit of us other commuters to know that he in fact was in total control of this "terrible" situation.

The poor woman radioed back to dispatch and of course found that it wasn't normal protocol to just start driving random routes whenever a person wanted you to.

I believe that Bob really would have made us all board that bus and may have driven us all to work himself if our Beeline hadn't shown up right about then. If given the chance, Bob may have also taken a couple detours to pick up his dry cleaning, grab some breakfast, and maybe even stop a couple "bad bees" from destroying the world, one late bus at a time.

Confession: If "Bob" had done this....I so would have been the first willing passenger. I really wanted to see Bob save the world from late buses. That would have been much more exciting than going to work.

I just would have hated to tell him that in the normal, un-pretend world that we actually live in, late buses don't give one an excuse to create a hostage situation. However....I might have waited to tell him that a couple minutes into our hijacked bus adventure.

Because seriously....annoying people are awesome. They try to save the world.