Yesterday, Bus Nerd and I celebrated our favorite holiday in our usual fashion: by busing to different events around the city. This year, Chicklet celebrated with us, and all went well (48 to Franklin for the annual rally and march, another Laura “Piece” Kelley sighting)–that is until we tried to catch the 8 from King Memorial Park, where the march ended, to the Center House, where the CD Forum was presenting a staged reading of “Our God is Marching On.”

Unfortunately, the 8 driver wasn’t feeling the holiday spirit. He drove past the sheltered stop (on Martin Luther King, Jr. Way, I might add), where the three of us (and two other riders) were waiting, without so much as tapping the brake.

“Maybe there’s another bus right behind him,” one of the other would-be passengers suggested.

Maybe not. We waited in the cold the 20+ minutes until the next 8 arrived, our attitudes growing more bitter as our fingers grew stiffer. We were even denied the satisfaction of complaining, as Metro’s rider information line was closed in observance of the holiday.